Recovery after surgery doesn’t depend solely on the surgeon’s skill, but also on whether there’s loved ones waiting outside the ICU

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I’m A self-professed astute observer of human medical conditions, and this is one of them. 

Hospitals are not lonely places, but they contain a lot of lonely people. Over the years, I’ve realised that recovery after surgery doesn’t depend only on the precision of a scalpel or the dosage of a drug. It often depends on who waits for you outside the ICU.

A wound heals faster when there’s someone to change the dressing with care, even if they use the wrong tape. The heart beats steadier when it recognises another voice nearby. And patients who have someone to hold their hand recover sooner than those who have only hospital linen for company.

In most private hospitals, there’s an unspoken hierarchy of caregiving. The wealthy outsource affection. Patients are looked after by nurses, ward boys, dietitians, physiotherapists, and occasionally by family members who make brief appearances between business calls. They arrive with hampers of dry fruits and the latest gadgets to “cheer up Dad” before disappearing again into traffic.

The poor, on the other hand, bring devotion. I’ve seen old men sleeping under their wives’ bed because there isn’t another option. Sons spoon-feeding their mothers soup with the same reverence with which one might pay obeisance to a deity. Daughters massaging their fathers’ feet as if trying to press life back into them. Their love is raw, inconvenient, unpaid, and utterly medicinal.

A few years ago, an elderly couple came to see me. He was 92, she was 89 – both slightly stooped but perfectly synchronised, the kind of couple........

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