How can a Doctor not be able to pay the rent?

 

As a doctor, people around you expect that you’ll lead a certain lifestyle – big house, big car, big everything. Regardless of whether you’ve only just graduated MBBS or even if you’re still an intern, society tends to believe that one must lead an extravagant lifestyle otherwise one is not a real doctor.

This is of course a monumentally stupid assertion. Doctors, especially those at the very beginning of their careers, are never going to be paid *more* than what they are worth.

Now think about what rich means. You’re rich when you essentially don’t have to work very hard to earn loads of cash. Or when you can stop working anytime and the cash will keep on coming. That is definitely not what happens in the medical profession. Not at the start of your career anyway.

If you think doctors are being paid reasonably well, it’s because they have to work long shifts, deal with life or death situations and face exposure to serious infectious diseases on a daily basis. Not to forget the loans many take just to complete their studies. Trust me, there are far easier ways of getting cash.

With all that being said, it still sucks immensely when you’re ridiculed for being a doctor in financial trouble.

The Background

As crappy as the pandemic has been, 2019 was much worse for me. During the first half of the year, I was not paid by a hospital for about 5 months despite working 60 hours per week. So I had to run to other hospitals during my “off hours” just to barely put together enough cash to pay the maid, the home nurse, my father’s meds and the bills.

I got into the government service through NRHM and I had foolishly believed that I could now be assured of monthly pay with no more running around. Little did I know, that the clerk at my new hospital was so incompetent that I wouldn’t see my first salary for a long time.

My monthly expenditure as mentioned earlier would be around 35k once you add in food and travel expenses. Every month, trying to meet this amount was a challenge. Doctors are expected to work with delayed pay by our employers but those we rely on at home will leave as soon as the money is delayed.

I had stopped everything that I didn’t consider to be absolutely essential. New clothes? Don’t need it. Movie with friends? Don’t need it. Eating out? Don’t need it. Laptop broken? Don’t need it anymore. PG prep coaching? Don’t need it. I wasn’t pessimistic about all this as I saw these are temporary sacrifices for the greater good. I wanted to believe that financial stability would come in a few months (spoiler - it didn’t).

When you Learn your House Isn’t Actually Yours

I’ve already mentioned what a selfish and untrustworthy person Aunt May was (and still is) on this blog since many years. Her antics on this occasion was supervillain levels of pathetic and even I didn’t expect someone to stoop so low.

Aunt May, despite being a reputed doctor, was now in financial trouble of her own making (investing in a cath lab when your hospital doesn’t have a full time cardiologist is not a good idea guys). She decided that one way out would be to sell the house me and my hemiplegic, dementia-suffering father were staying in. And of course, she didn’t want to tell me until the deal was agreed and it was time to kick us out.

I heard whispers about the house being put up for sale but I was foolishly under the belief that the house was under ownership of all 3 siblings (my father, Aunt May and their older brother who’d passed away years earlier). I thought Aunt May would need to talk to me *eventually*. I was wrong.

Before I was even born, my late grandmother and the rest of the family decided to write the house under Aunt May’s name in exchange for her paying off a loan my father just couldn’t pay off. And no fucking person in my family bothered to tell me this.

Rumour is that my grandmother wanted my father to have the house but who the hell knows at this point. Ownership was given to Aunt May with the belief that she wouldn’t actually sell the thing. But since my father never actually made enough money to pay her back, she did have a right to get her cash back another way.

Evil Descends

The tragedy is that I would have completely understood if she had just straight up told me the situation. I’d have had the time to plan moving somewhere I might have been able to afford.

But no, Aunt May not only wanted to get the money, she also wanted to be the benevolent big sister in front of the other relatives. She’d already arranged for a flat that I would have fuck all chance of being able to afford. She promised to “pay the rent every month”, a lie so bad no one on the entire street believed it for a second.

After finalising a deal with a buyer for a nice sum of money, we were given nothing. Not even a token amount despite the obvious helpless situation I was in. And that’s not even the bad part.

Aunt May and her son with the help of another couple of relatives she bribed, basically dragged out my bedridden father against his will in the middle of the night as the neighbours watched on in amazement. She then said it was not her job to tell me she was planning all this, apparently that was *my father’s responsibility*. Fucking seriously?

I was kicked out myself a couple of weeks later. She asked for the key in order to show the house around and then changed the lock while I was at work. My things were still inside. I wasn’t really surprised by anything anymore.

To add more salt to sounds, she then started spinning stories to relatives about how I’m causing needless problems with the sale. Apparently I was a chronic alcoholic frequently multiple pubs in the area even though in reality I had barely spent anything on myself for ages. This was just a way to justify not giving us any money.

“3 months. Tops.”

That’s what people told about Aunt May’s offer to pay the rent every month. But by this point, I had no real options.

In the end, it was more like 1 month than 3. This despite Aunt May also agreeing to lease another, larger family property for a cool 50 lakh advance and 3 lakh per month (again without informing anybody).

Meanwhile, I still hadn’t received my first salary as the clerk was still fooling around. My bank balance was going towards 0 with no hope of a quick solution. I was forced to take loans, sometimes from people I did not like because I was desperate. When my father slipped and fell, he was admitted for 3 days costing 35k. I could only get the cash by again asking friendly relatives for loans.

For someone who dislikes taking even the smallest of loans, I now had a list of people I needed to pay back.

And of course, that is not including the fucking flat rent that I could not pay in any way or form.

What Kind of Doctor Can’t Pay Rent?

“You’re a doctor, surely you can easily pay 17k per month rent!” That’s what the receptionist would tell me.

This harassment would continue for months. While Aunt May and her son could easily switch off their phones whenever this issue came up, I was the one who had to hear it in person. It was humiliating to say the least.

After running out of ideas on how to get more money, I decided to sell some furniture (needless to say, I didn’t need extra chairs at this point). But then her highness objected vociferously claiming that not only the home but the entire furniture inside was legally hers too. Wonderful.

Eventually my whole world fell apart once my father passed away. My first salary only came a few days after his death, 5 and a half months after I began service.

My uncle (mother’s brother) paid off the pending rent at the flat although that far too much of a courtesy to the scoundrels who put me in this situation to begin with.

Last memory of that God-forsaken flat before I left

They are still Accountable

It’s been years since this happened but I’m still yet to receive any apology from anyone. In fact, anytime I mention it I get messages from Aunt May’s pals saying “Focus on your career.”

Listen, I can focus on my career just fine without any sort of career guidance from Aunt May or who all want to associate with her. I’ve probably been doing better than what most of them expected considering the crappy stories they were spreading about me back then.

Putting that aside, let’s not distract ourselves from these basic truths -

 1.  Aunt May dragged her own bedridden brother out of his home while insulting him like anything.

 2. She never told me the house was being sold until the deal was fixed and it was time to move.

 3. She changed the lock on the house after I gave her the key in confidence.

 4. She gave 0 consideration to the financial troubles faced by her bedridden brother and her nephew.

 5. She forced us into a flat we couldn’t afford so she could brag to relatives about how kind she was to her brother.

 6. Ultimately, she wants to punish others for all the crappy business decisions she’s made in life.

 7. This whole ordeal severely affected my father’s mental health and may have played a role in his worsening condition over the next few months.

The reason these assholes do this with such confidence is because they believe eventually we’ll all forget about it. We can’t change the past, I know. But how can anyone “forgive and forget” when no one is sorry in the first place?