Mumbai: In what experts are calling a “once-in-a-century administrative miracle,” a committee meeting at Quackdoses Multispeciality Hospital started exactly on time — triggering disbelief, mild panic, and palpable tremors across the healthcare industry.
Sources confirmed that the meeting, scheduled for 3:00 PM, began at 3:00 PM — not 3:17, not 3:43, and astonishingly, without the traditional ritual of waiting for “just two more consultants who are on the way.”
It is a well-known fact that in hospitals today, although invitations for committee meetings are shared well in advance, most stakeholder consultants consider punctuality optional and lateness a fundamental right. Standard explanations include “patients in OPD,” “on rounds,” “stuck in the lift,” and the evergreen “just five minutes.” The only members present at the scheduled hour are typically from the quality team, representatives from the nursing team, and a handful of dangerously sincere — and arguably foolish — consultants who still believe punctuality is a professional virtue rather than a personality defect.
In an exclusive interview, Dr. K’abhi Matbann, the hospital CEO — who appeared visibly unsettled — said, “Never in the history of this hospital has any meeting started on time. Normally, by the time quorum is achieved, half the agenda has already been carried forward to the next meeting. Also, since minutes of meetings and CAPAs in most hospitals are often conveniently ‘managed’ by quality teams, committee meetings largely exist to generate attendance sheets for accreditation purposes.
“What can be considered an industry first was made possible only because of my visionary leadership — specifically, announcing additional bonuses from the next financial year for consultants who reach the meeting venue on time. We have long incentivized surgical volumes and revenue targets. It was time we rewarded a rarer and more endangered skill — reaching a committee meeting before it ends.”
Unconfirmed reports suggest that several hospitals are urgently reviewing their internal policies to ensure such deviations do not disturb the sacred tradition and cultural doctrine of “Indian Standard Time,” under which meetings are constitutionally expected to begin only after sufficient collective delay.
At the time of publication, consultants across the city were reportedly rechecking their email inboxes and employment contracts to confirm whether punctuality has officially become a Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
