Mar 05, 2017 03:46 PM
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My mother-in-law, 84 years old was suffering from gastroenteritis and her bowel movements were irregular and had constipation. On 27/02/2017 she was referred by a doctor to Apollo hospital Bannerghatta road Bangalore for X-ray of abdomen and further investigation of the problem. She was taken into emergency and the X-ray was taken. The doctor at the emergency ward decided she needs to be admitted to the hospital for further investigation and they asked us to complete the admission procedure. We did this by paying Rs.10000/= and we were told the ward will be ready after sometime. In the meanwhile by the time we returned to the emergency ward, they had put a catheter for urine, pipe through nose for feeding and oxygen mask and other monitors. All this was not required as she had lunch at 12 Noon and walked into the hospital for X-ray. The next test advised was CT scan and this was finally done at 8 PM in the night and they told us that we cannot move her to ward till the results are given and the doctor visits her. Finally they said the doctor will not be visiting and they will seek his advise on phone. The doctor Mr. Sauraubh Mishra was finally consulted by one of his team member and he said since her saturation level is a little high she should be in ICU till he visits next day . We found her to be perfectly normal talking to all of us. So where was the necessity for this. Initially she was in medical ICU and the she was moved to surgical ICU. Looks like they had already decided that she should undergo surgery.
Next day Dr. Saurabh Mishra referred her to a to an oncologist Dr. Vishvanath. He advised a PET scan and said that this can be done only after bringing down the sugar level, which will be next day. So another day in ICU. He also referred her surgical oncologist Mr. Anil Kamath. He glanced at the reports and said that he FEELS the cyst is cancerous(stage 1) and needs to be operated the next day. They would be removing her uterus, cyst, lymph nodes, ovaries in a major surgery. The surgery time would be around 2-3 hours and cost of surgery alone is 2L. He said this surgery is required even without confirming that it is cancerous. He said no need for PET scan to confirm. When it was pointed out that sugar level was high for PET scan and how is it possible for surgery. He casually said insulin can be given for that. He was in a great hurry to finish the surgery(to get the money) and wanted to schedule it the next day itself.
When we said a surgery for an 84 year old patient needs some thinking and we would like to take her home and decide after sometime, he got upset and angry and asked us how we would feed her without tube. We informed him Just 24 hours ago before coming to hospital she had solid food lunch and if required we can just keep her in liquid diet for a day, he got angry and accused us that we were deciding as though we were doctors and that we could do whatever we wanted. We put our foot down and asked for her discharge. They made us run around for about 5 hours before discharging her. In the detailing billing they had already billed Rs.31000/= for the PET scan which was just scheduled to be next day. The total bill given to us was Rs. 94, 000/= including the PET scan charges for admission of less than 24 hours. On confronting they said that test is already done and when asked for reports they realized the mistake. Finally they discharged her at 8 PM.
After she came she is eating solid food and taking short walks at home. This is the plight of patients going to corporate multi specialty hospitals.
After a couple of days we took her to a smaller hospital and consulted a physician and a surgeon for her bowel movements problem. The doctors checked and said the stools have hardened inside and just enigma would suffice and in future if she had constipation which is just an old age problem, a syrup would do the job. They just gave the enigma and we brought her back home and she is the old self again.
We would never consult Apollo hospital again.
