They sent him to the supply room. The whole thing made no sense. It felt as if he were floating above the scene instead of participating in it, like a near death experience viewed with the anxious, darting eyes of someone nearing their end. The room was small, cramped, and had no windows to let in the soul-saving power of sunlight. The fluorescent light falling on the tall stainless steel shelving made it seem surreal. The humming lights spilled onto a stainless steel table at the far end of the small room. The table had a built in sink and was flanked by a large ice machine. It was silently making chunks of the stuff for the laboring women to chomp on while they awaited the arrival of their bundles kissed with the sweetness of life.

There were shelves with sutures of various types, limp opaque bags of intravenous fluids labeled with words like “Dextrose 5% in Normal Saline” or “Lactated Ringer’s Solution”. Boxes of gauze bandages and sterile gloves took up a third of one shelf. There were scalpel handles and blades for a myriad of possibilities, waiting for their chance. He remembered the phrase that pushed him toward becoming a surgeon, “A chance to cut is a chance to cure”. The endless boxes of medical supplies held promises of help for the pain or suffering of most of the patients seen in labor and delivery. Some, however, were not so lucky.

It struck him as ironic that the supplies in the room could be used to cure or to cause pain. The task at hand involved neither for his patient. He had been told to go into the room and get a specimen for analysis. It sounded so cold and clinical. At least this patient was beyond pain, he thought. It occurred to him that this held no comfort, because once she was beyond pain, she was also beyond saving. He stared, dazed, at the small form that he had lain on the table. The lights shone down on the sink and it felt wrong to him that she was laying in a space made for a dish rack. The indentations in the cold steel under her body made him feel sick. He gently picked her up and moved her to the other side of the sink. He left her in the blanket she was wrapped in, but knew it could not keep her warm.