Here’s our review of The Good Karma Hospital season 2 episode 2. Spoilers ahoy!
“We need to accept what we are responsible for the mistakes we made”
The second episode of this new run of The Good Karma Hospital sees Dr Lydia Fonseca, on her day off, walking through a local market. Her shopping trip is rudely interrupted, however, when she realises a herbal remedy medical centre has set up there.
The practitioner, Dr Anila, introduces a sceptical Lydia to some of her satisfied patients – including Reya, a young single mother with a heart condition. She claims Anula saved her after lack of treatment from another doctor, who turns out to have been none-other than Lydia herself.
Lydia realises her patient slipped through the system, leaving Dr Nair looking rather guilty, “Not our finest hour”, she concludes, before resolving to regain her trust (“I’ll just have to make her see sense”).
Lydia’s attempts to make amends backfire when she inadvertently gets Reya sacked. She manages to persuade Reya’s harassed boss to reinstate her in another position (“People don’t appreciate how hard it is to keep up with it all”… “Try running a hospital”). Her efforts prove to be in vain, however, as Reya then collapses leaving the future uncertain for her and her young child
Meanwhile, Ruby and Varma team up to deal with two patients – one with a demanding girlfriend, and the other a young window cleaner who fakes injury to steal supplies and Ruby’s new motorbike (“Is this a bad time to mention bike locks?”).
When the latter returns, he explains he stole the supplies to treat his brother, who badly burnt his arm stealing electricity. This leads the haughty Dr Varma to reveal a little, just a little, about his not so posh background (“That’s it? That’s all I’m getting? OK”).
He offers to help the young window cleaner by offering to buy a circuit breaker to help steal electricity in exchange for getting Ruby’s motorbike back.
Elsewhere, Mari is concentrating on work to get over her breakup. Widower Paul is struggling on his return to India without Maggie. Greg takes pity, and accompanies him on a trip to a Kathakali theatre show where Paul reveals he has only returned to do all the things he and Maggie had planned to do last year.
AJ has ulterior motives to explain wanting to show what a good orderly he is (“If my dad sees I’m enjoying my job, I’ll be out of here by the end of the week”), and Dr Nair’s plans to propose to Mala over a romantic dinner for two turns into a double date – when his matchmaker girlfriend tries to set AJ up with Mandeep, a young lady who’s also putting on a act to fool her father as she’s not as reserved as she appears (“Life is only boring if you get caught”).
The episode ends with Ruby getting a letter from someone claiming to be her uncle asking to meet.
There is a rather downbeat tone to this weeks’ Lydia centred episode, one of those episodes in a medical drama where the viewers are reminded that the doctors are not infallible, and not every patient can be saved.