Sick Sheena

‘Aitchoo!’ sneezed Sheena. She was sick. Sheena and her mother have come to the hospital. They are waiting outside the doctor’s room.

A lady in a white dress with a tray comes to them. She asked Sheena, ‘Çan you come with me?’

Sheena said, ‘Yes, I can.’ Her mother and she went with the lady. She took Sheena’s temperature and noted it down. She took Sheena’s weight and measured her height.

‘Who are you?’ Sheena asked.

‘Í am a nurse,’ said the lady in the white dress. ‘I care for sick people. I give them medicines, too. Please sit in the waiting room for the doctor.’

Sheena and her mother wait for the doctor to call them. Sheena saw a man in a blue dress cleaning the floor with a long broom.

‘Who is that man?’ She asked her mother.

‘He is the cleaner. Hospitals have to be kept very clean. He sweeps and swabs the floors, dusts the chairs and tables and keeps everything in order.’

Sheena saw two men pushing a long bed on wheels. ‘Who are they?’ She asks.

‘They are the ambulance workers who bring very sick people to the hospital. They also take sick people who cannot walk from one hospital to another.’

‘Çan they say what medicines the sick person must have?’

‘No. They cannot. Only a doctor can do that,’ said Mother.

‘Why does an ambulance have a siren and a red light?’ Sheena asked.

‘The siren and lights tell the traffic on the road to give way to the ambulance, ’ said Mother.

The nurse called, ‘Sheena! The doctor wants to see you.’

Sheena and her mother went into the doctor’s room. He was wearing a long white coat. He smiles at Sheena.

‘Sheena has a cold,’ said her mother.

‘Open your mouth, Sheena,’ said the kind doctor. He looked inside Sheena’s mouth with a torch. He pressed a round thing on Sheena’s chest and back. It has thin pipes that go into the doctor’s ears. The doctor listened carefully.

He told Sheena, ‘It is only a little cold. I will write down the medicine for it. In two days, you can go back to school.’

Sheena smiled. They left the doctor’s room. The nurse looked at the doctor’s note and gave them medicines.

When they go out, a hospital guard opened the door for them. He helps sick people go in and leave the hospital.

‘I didn’t know so many people work in a hospital, Mother,’ said Sheena.

‘Now you know how many people care for you when you are sick. So always remember to thank them,’ said Mother.