3 Hospital's decision
In one hospital corridor, one female nurse seemed quite disturbed while reading a piece of paper. She kept staring at it, and after a small moment, she let out a heavy sigh.
"Miss Lylah, why are you wasting your time standing like that over here? "a man with a white robe said as he noticed the nurse after he exited from one of the nearby rooms.
Hearing the man's voice snapped the nurse out of her stare at the piece of paper as she awkwardly turned her gaze to the male doctor.
"Dr. Kiran… I was just…. "
But as she was ready to say something, the doctor named Kiran raised his hand to signal her to stop speaking.
"If you speak over that patient again, you better leave the hospital and never return. We have already been through that discussion more than enough times. We can do nothing about him anymore, so go and do the task assigned to you, "the man said in an authoritative voice, not leaving her any time to even try to speak back.
"I… I understand. "
Lylah turned and headed towards a room far from where she was. As she entered the room, there was just one more patient in it.
The person was a male but was currently on a bed and was asleep. They had connected him to different monitors to check his condition and his vitals were far from regular.
His heart rate was pretty slow, especially if it wasn't flat. It wasn't a constant number, but its range wasn't that big as it went between 5 and 10 beats per minute. So even for someone in a coma, it was abnormally low.
They found the patient at the front door of their hospital, with no note or anyone around that was with him. Some cameras recorded that location, but for some reason, the cameras malfunctioned around that time.
Fortunately, the person had a wallet on him with an id, and they found him to be in their databases. So they could try to find a family member or someone appointed to call in case of emergencies.
That was what usually would be the case, but unfortunately, Mark had appointed no one as his person to call in case of an emergency like that. This wasn't unheard of, but it made it challenging for the hospital in cases like that.
Mark, the patient's name, didn't have any wounds or signs of the reason that he was in his current situation. But unfortunately, it's already been almost a month since they found him, and he was getting worse by the day.
In the first week he was here, his condition was at normal levels, and other than being in a coma, there was nothing medically wrong with him. But after that, his condition started going down. With each week passing, his heart was getting slower and slower, and if things continued like that, he didn't have more than a few days until his heart completely stopped.
But no matter what any of the doctors tried, they found nothing to explain that strange phenomenon. Of course, they didn't do everything to examine the patient.
Some tests could bring forward more evidence of what was wrong with the patient, but the patient's insurance did not cover those. So without a person being there to ensure the hospital that they would get paid for those tests, all they could do was keep on those simple ones.
These actions, indeed, were considered heartless by a few people who had learned of the case, but there was nothing they could do about it. The only people who knew about it were those working in or on the hospital board.
The board had been informed about the situation, as it was a situation that could be close to a scandal if the media found out about it. After all, hospitals were supposed to keep people healthy, not let them die.
The board had investigated the individual's background, as according to the protocol, one appointed by the patient had to be the one to make decisions and pay the bill. But they could take that role on rare occasions like that.
But after finding out who Mark was, they let things be as it was. At first, when they found out about his family, they were ready to do anything to keep him alive, but when they found out that he was no part of them anymore, they went against that decision.
Normally Mark's exiling from family wasn't common knowledge, but the people on the board had enough resources to access information about those events.
So since Mark was to die in a couple of days anyway, they decided to pull the plug. Fortunately, Mark had signed as an organ donor, meaning they had earned something out of it in the end.
But Mark's plug pulling was supposed to be four days ago, but the nurse in charge of him was ordered to do so, and she let her disagreement be known.
In the end, the nurse got fired, and they gave the task to Lylah, who was just a trainee nurse at that point. But unfortunately, the nurse who got fired was the person she mainly trained under, which made the whole situation quite awkward.
She had studied all those years to help people and keep them healthy, but before even being officially hired, they tasked her to do something against her beliefs.
But she knew that if she disagreed, she was over at being a nurse, as nobody would want to hire her. The board had made sure about that with her nurse teacher, who was in the business for over a decade. So if they could do that for her teacher, nothing could stop them from doing so to her, as she had no background or anyone to help her.
She had tried to find a reason not to do so, but Dr. Kiran, who was in charge of the case, didn't let her get away. As for reporting this to the media, even she knew it would be a desperate move.
Even if this could be brought out as a scandal, it wouldn't prevent the board from firing her. Even if people found out about her getting fired for not doing something inhuman like that, that was only if she had the chance to let someone know.
She had noticed those days that she was under surveillance, and people had followed her when she left home and wherever she was in the hospital if there were no cameras.
Even she could tell that people followed her on her way home, as they didn't hide the fact much. It was like they were sending a message to her, with the message being clear— speak, and we will know.
As she started moving closer to the main machine to help Mark's situation, tears started falling down her cheeks.
"I… I am sorry, "she said in a voice full of remorse as she flipped the switch to turn off the machine.
She then moved to the next machine, and it didn't take her long to turn all of them off except for the heart monitor. She needed to record the exact time Mark had passed away in the end, as it was one task given to her.
But something unexpected happened at that moment.
Instead of the heart rate getting slower, it started getting faster. As soon as Lylah noticed that, she ran out of the room after a moment of her being frozen in place.
She didn't do so because she feared something, but she had to call the doctor or a more experienced nurse.
In her hurry, and because the whole situation was unexpected, she failed to hear a sound coming from Mark's direction.
If she did, though would have noticed the sound of an engine that had started. Not long after Lylah exited the room and the sound started, Mark opened his eyes.
