Hospital-Place of healing or Mental torture???

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…