Why the Elevator downstairs?

I work in a private Hospital in the heart of Kochi city. This is a modest middle level Hospital with most of the Speciality Departments. We have an old building with OP Block on the ground floor and two floors of wards above. Then we have a new block added to the old one. This block has four floors and a roof top auditorium on the fifth. We also have added a new building in an adjoining plot that is connected to main building by a bridge.

Why am I giving so many details? Well, we have two lifts that work full time for all the people coming to the hospital. We have rules and boards which say that the lift is only for the use of patients. My problem is not with the lifts but with those people who use the lifts.

Our nursing staff mostly consists of young people like the population of our country. Over half of the girls are below the age of 25 years. Many of them are barely 18 to 20 and are students of our Nursing School. I see them everyday, coming to the hospital with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Even though some of them live in substandard hostels and work through inhuman hours, they don't lack the fizz that you expect in this age group. That is the beauty of this age. But they have problems too. I understand their worries and problems to a certain extent. I have many a times taken up their issues with the management for providing them with a better quality of life.

But one thing about these young people annoys me very much. They all wait for the lift! Now people may ask what is wrong in that? I too take the lift if I have to go to the top floor in a hurry. I try to avoid taking the elevator when I am not in a hurry. I don't have issues with people waiting for the lift to go upstairs. It is when I see little girls wait for several minutes for the lift to go downstairs. How can young people waste so much of time waiting for the lift when climbing down the staircase is such an easy option? I repeatedly question this attitude of the youngsters. I admonish them too saying, " Why on earth do you people waste time like this?". For all we know, sometimes the time they waste thus may affect the patient care.

But in spite of several requests, I see no change in the attitude of people. I don't bother about the forty plus staff at all, but why the youth? This is a time when they should be on the move and achieve things in life. Readers please don't think these are rantings of an oldie against generation next. I am not senile. I never take the elevator downstairs, but always climb down. And except for absolute emergencies and when the lift is readily available I don't take the elevator upstairs too. So I preach what I practiceI

What I feel and write here is not only for our hospital, but is applicable to anywhere and everywhere in the world. Young and healthy people of the world, please don't waste time waiting for the lift downstairs. Climbing down the staircase takes much lesser time than the actual time we waste waiting for the elevator.

Is anyone hearing? And if yes, does anyone care?