We Indians are God fearing people. We fear
God and consider some as God.
In India, people blindly follow
spirituality and believe doctors amongst many other things, and when you have a
hospital which is associated with a well known temple , then common people go
blind, dumb and deaf and these people make use of people’s faith in filling
their money banks.
There is a hospital near my place, which is
one of its kind, a multi-specialty hospital with a tagline ‘Serving in
Devotion’. We regularly visit as we get all doctors and other facilities under
same roof, and it's convenient as it's near to my place. But since over a
period of time, I had experiences, which really made me think “Are these people
really following their tagline or are they really a Non-Profit Organization as
their website claims?”
Case 1: My daughter who has epilepsy was advised
EEG by her neurologist. On the appointed day (Friday) inspite of giving two
dose of sleep inducing medicine (which I doubt whether it was genuine or no as
she didn’t sleep even after reaching home), she didn’t sleep so we were given
another appointment for Monday. So again on Monday we woke her up at odd hour
in morning didn’t allow her to sleep till we reached hospital that is around
noon.
While I headed straight to the EEG
department, my hubby went to do the payment and get the bill. When I reached
the department I was informed that the machine is not working since morning and
all appointments have been cancelled, still you wait till 12.15 (we had reached
at 11.30am) till the technician comes. When I asked why we were not informed, a
rather rude reply came saying it's not our duty ask reception. After couple of
minutes hubby comes with the bill and he is told the technician is late wait
till 12.15. He is not told about the machine not working. By this time our
daughter who has been awake since past 10 hours starts to doze off. So he goes
off to the reception to enquire, where again they start replying as if it's not
their fault. The explanation they gave was, they usually take only four
patients but since ours was carry-over of Friday we were in waiting list and it
didn’t show in their system. Somehow my hubby was convinced with an apology and
sent for a refund of our amount.
There again he is told to get it written
that refund has to be made. Now my hubby loses his cool, that’s when senior staff intervenes, hears him out and gives the refund without any further fuss.
When I come down I am again apologized but the tone didn’t mean it. I lost my
cool and asked, if it's not your fault whose is it? Why were the billing
department not informed about it? Why did they not inform us when we had gone
to pay the amount? Do these people have an iota of feelings or no? The tone in
which that receptionist was apologizing was like I should be grateful that we
are offered an apology inspite of they being wrong. All we got was a
sympathetic look, an apology and a promise that our appointment will be
rescheduled and there will be no mistake this time.
As if this was not enough,
when I went to collect the report it stated my daughter as Male. When I asked
for correction as I have to submit it for a mediclaim the technician gave me
some story saying the report has come from the Doctor so she can't get new
printout and so she put some whitener and did the correction. See what a shoddy
work she has done. A school going child can do a better work.
Seriously is this a municipality hospital or what???
Case 2:
A
senior most ophthalmologist told my parents (both mom and dad) to undergo
Cataract Surgery ASAP couple of months back when they had gone for their
regular checkup. What followed next is everyone’s guess. But since the
mediclaim they have don’t recognize this hospital, we went to another one which
the mediclaim has listed and when they got their eyes checked there… (Hold your breath) Dad does have cataract but in initial stage
and mom doesn’t have it at all.
Imagine if we had gone ahead with the
surgery??? What a waste of money, time and energy it would have been, not to
mention stress.
This same ophthalmologist had also
suggested squint correction surgery for my daughter who tends to squint when
she is tired/drowsy or has any infection. This was nearly 3 years back. Her
eyes are perfectly fine. We had taken second opinion from another
ophthalmologist who told she doesn’t have any squint.
Case 3: Last year I had sought counseling from Physcologist,
who had suggested some physco-analaysis test. The report had husband’s name
spelt wrong and also in history there was information which was not mine. When
I pointed out, the counselor told “Oh this history belongs to other patient. My
assistant made a mistake”. Does that mean you copy paste the reports?
Case 4: Last year my daughter was admitted in the
same hospital for high fever and had aspirated while vomiting. The doctor-in-charge
(another senior most) who was handling her case and all the RMO’s who were on
rounds would insist on insertion of PEG tube just because she had aspirated now
and had pneumonia when she was 8 months old. The senior doctor went a step
ahead and told me if it's not done then this aspiration and pneumonia will keep
repeating and every time we won’t be able to help her. He even gave me a reference letter for surgeon
in the hospital for the same. My daughter who can chew, bite and eat
everything, is recommended a PEG tube by doctors who know her since a couple
of days since she was admitted or just after seeing her admission file in
hospital…
Are
those words to be told by any doctor to a mother?
Seriously… are they doctors??? Or are they
just people sitting there to trap gullible people part with their hard earned
money by scaring them and insisting on unnecessary procedures/surgeries.
Is this how spirituality and charity or
serving with devotion works???
This is same hospital, who flaunts their
NABH certification “Mark of Excellence”. Is this excellence?
I won’t say all doctors in hospital are
money minded. There are some doctors who really think for benefit of the
patient and not themselves or hospitals. But like a bad apple spoils the whole
basket, similarly few mean, money minded doctors spoil the name of the whole
profession.
All I suggest, as I have been telling to
all whom I know and in some of my previous blogs,
·
Never
blindly follow any medical advice.
·
Always seek a second opinion.
·
If both
the opinions differ go for third.
It's
better to be safe than sorry. Money can be earned but once health is damaged,
it's a long road for recovery.
This is
a glass of water taken from an ocean, many more experiences and incidents
coming up soon in future.
Stay safe… Stay healthy…
