Arthur Hailey - Strong Medicine

Sam closed the folder and smiled.”Of course, you were helped a little by a falloff in prescription drugs sales. Just the same, it's a tremendous achievement, Celia. Congratulations!" "Thank you.”

Celia was pleased. She had expected the figures to be favorable, though not as outstanding as those Sam had just reported. She considered briefly, then told him, "I think O-T-C will keep its momentum, and Bill Ingram has become very good. Since, as you just said, prescription sales are down, maybe I could help out there.”

"You will," Sam said.”I promise it. Also, we may have something special and interesting for you. But be patient for a few months more.”

Andrew faced the hospital administrator grimly, They were in Leonard Sweeting's office and both were standing. Tension hung in the air between them. It was a Friday, close to noon. "Dr. Jordan," the St. Bede's administrator said formally-his voice taut, his expression serious-"before you go any further, let me caution you to be absolutely certain of what you are saying and to consider the consequences which may follow.”

"Goddammit!" Andrew, who was short-tempered from a sleepless night, was ready to explode.”Do you think I haven't done that?" "I imagined you had. I wanted to be sure.”

As usual, Sweeting's thick, bushy eyebrows moved up and down rapidly as he spoke. "All right-here it is again, Leonard, and this time I'm making it official.”

Continuing, Andrew chose his words carefully, the sentences wrenched reluctantly from his heart. "My partner, Dr. Noah Townsend," Andrew said, "is up on the medical floor at this moment where he is seeing patients. To my personal knowledge, Dr. Townsend is under the influence of drugs, to which he is addicted. In my opinion he is incompetent to practice medicine and may be endangering patients' lives. Further, also to my personal knowledge, a patient died needlessly in this hospital this week because of an error by Noah Townsend when he was impaired by drugs.”

"Jesus!" At the final sentence the administrator had paled. Now he pleaded, "Andrew, can you at least leave that last bit out?" "I can't and I won't! I also demand that you do something immediately.”

Andrew added savagely, "Something you should have done four years ago when we both knew what was happening, but you and others chose to keep your mouths closed and your eyes averted.”

Leonard Sweeting growled, "I have to do something. Legally, Andrew's mother, who had moved to Europe, was seldom heard from and, despite invitations, had never been to visit. She had not seen her grandchildren and apparently had no wish to.”When she hears from us, we remind her that she's old," Andrew observed.”She'd prefer not to have that happen, so I think we'll leave her alone.”

Celia sensed the sadness behind Andrew's remark. Andrew's long-estranged father had died; the news reached them, by merest chance, several months after it happened. As to younger family members, Lisa was now seven and in second grade at school. She continued to exhibit a strong personality, took her schoolwork seriously, and had a special pride in her growing vocabulary, though sometimes straining it. Referring to an American history lesson, she told Celia, "We learned about the American Constipation, Mommy," and on another occasion when explaining a circle, "The outside is the encumbrance.”

Bruce-now almost five-showed, in contrast, a gentleness and sensitivity, partly offset by a droll sense of humor. Celia was prompted to observe once to Andrew, "Brucie can be hurt easily. He'll need more protecting than Lisa.”

"Then he must do what I did," Andrew responded, "and marry a strong, good woman.”

He said it tenderly and Celia went to him and hugged him. Afterward she said, "I see a lot of you in Brucie.”

Of course, the two of them bickered occasionally, and there had been a serious quarrel or two during eight years of marriage, but no more than wits normal between husbands and wives, nor did the minor wounds they inflicted fail to heal quickly. Both knew they had a good marriage and did all they could to protect and preserve it. The children were with them when they watched, on TV, the rioting in Watts. "My God!" Andrew breathed, as scene followed awful scene-of burning, looting, destruction, brutality, injury and death, savage fighting between embittered blacks and beleaguered police in the wretched, degrading, segregated ghetto slum of Charcoal Alley. It was a living nightmare of poverty and misery the world ignored, except at moments like this when Watts obligingly provided drama for the TV networks, which it would continue to do for five more dreadful days and nights.”My God!" Andrew repeated.”Can you believe this is happening in our own country?"

All of them were so riveted to the TV screen that not until near the end did Celia observe Bruce who was shaking, quivering, sobbing silently, with tears streaming down his face. She went to him at once and held him, urging Andrew, "Switch it off!" But Bruce called out, "No, Daddy! No!" and they continued watching until the terrible scenes were done. "They were hurting people, Mommy!" Bruce protested afterward. Still comforting him, Celia answered, "Yes, Brucie, they were. It's sad and it's wrong, but it sometimes happens.”

She hesitated, then added, "What you're going to find out is that things like what you saw often happen.”

Later, when the children were abed, Andrew said, "It was all depressing, but you gave Brucie the right answer. Too many of us live in cocoons. Sooner or later he has to learn there's another world outside.”

"Yes," Celia said. She went on thoughtfully, "I've been wanting to talk to you about cocoons. I think I've been in one myself.”

A swift smile crossed her husband's face, then disappeared. He asked, "Could it be an O-T-C cocoon?" "Something like that. I know that some of what I've been doing involves things you don't approve of, Andrew-like Healthotherm and System 500. You haven't said a lot. Have you minded very much?" "Maybe a little.”

He hesitated, then went on.”I'm proud of you, Celia, and what you do, and it's the reason I'll be glad when someday you go back to the prescription medicines side of Felding-Roth, which we both know is a whole lot more important. Meanwhile, though, there are things I've come to terms with. One is, people will go on buying snake oil whether you or others produce it, so it doesn't make a helluva difference who does. And something else: If people didn't buy O-T-C potions and went to doctors instead, we'd all be swamped-we couldn't cope.”

"Aren't you rationalizing?" Celia asked doubtfully.”Just because it's me?" "If I am, why not? You're my wife, and I love you.”

"That goes both ways.”

She leaned over to kiss him.”Well, you can stop rationalizing, darling, because I've decided that O-T-C and I have been together long enough. Tomorrow I intend to ask for a change.”

"If it's what you really want, I hope you get it.”

after what you've told me, I have no choice. But as to what's past, I know nothing about it.”

"You're lying," Andrew said, "and both of us know it. But I'll let that go because at the time I was as bad, and as gutless as you. What I'm concerned about is now.”

The administrator sighed. He said, half to himself, "I guess this had to break open sometime.”

Then, moving to his desk, he picked up a telephone. A secretary's voice rattled in the instrument and Sweeting instructed, "Get me the chairman of the board downtown. Whatever he's doing, tell his people to break into it. This is urgent. When you've done that, you and anyone else out there get on phones and summon a meeting of the medical executive committee. The meeting will be held immediately in the boardroom.”

Sweeting glanced at a clock.”Most heads of services should be in the hospital now.”