Apr 08, 2013 01:41 AM
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I shudder every time I think of the 4 days I spent in BLK hospital, and I hope no one has to go through the trauma that we had to endure. My father was admitted to this hospital from 21 Mar - 24 Mar 2013, as his oncologist, a doctor for who we have a lot of respect, consults here.
On the day of admission, we were informed he needs a PET scan the next day to rule out the recurrence of cancer - however, this ultra modern hospital does not have a PET machine which they conveniently forgot to mention, and so my father - a 67 year old diabetic and cancer patient who had been admitted to the hospital in the first place for treatment of high fever and extreme weakness - was taken to Ganga Ram hospital where there were at least 10 other patients, leading to a very long and tiring wait for my father - on account of this, he was also made to stay on an empty stomach (not even any water) for nearly 10 hours, the procedure finally concluding after 3 PM!
The same day, we were informed that he needs to undergo an endoscopy and they had fixed an appointment for him for the the next day at 9AM - he was also asked to fast overnight for the endoscopy, and were told it's a very short 5 - 10 minute procedure. He was taken to the endoscopy machine room at 9 AM and my sister who was the attendant was asked to wait outside. She waited for nearly 2 hours - each time she enquired with the department nurse, she was told he was undergoing the procedure.
Finally, at 11 AM my father called my sister and informed her that he was being shuttled from one place to another and the procedure was yet to begin! When my sister confronted the attending staff, they informed her that they were cleaning the machines - can you imagine that they called a 67 year diabetic & cancer patient who could barely sit for a procedure that takes only 5 minutes and made him wait for over 2 hours to clean their machines!
Finally, it emerged that the doctor who was supposed to the procedure, a Dr Vij, had been missing and the cleaning of the machine was just an excuse, with no thought for the poor suffering patient. Finally, the procedure was completed around 12.30 PM when it could have easily been finished by 9 AM - and on account of the delay my father had also gone without food for over 12 hours for the second consecutive day.
In between all of this, there were a whole host of tests done on my father, many of which seemed to be un-necessary to us. When we questioned the need for some of the tests - the resident doctor said that anything could be possible and they didn't want to rule anything out - of course anything is possible but the job of a doctor is to pin point the 2-3 areas that are most likely, especially when the patient has been under your observation for over 3 days.
They would take blood samples from my extremely weak father 2-3 times a day and on the evening on which we expected him to be discharged (Saturday Marrch 23) we were informed that he has low Hb and needs blood transfusion (He had already been given two units of blood in Feb and his Hb was normal just a day ago as tested at the hospital) - maybe he wouldn't have needed this if the resident doctor was a little less eager to do all possible tests in the world. On account of the 3 hour delay in endoscopy by the hospital and the insistence of the blood transfusion, ours discharge was pushed to the next day.
On the day of discharge, I noticed that the hospital had overlooked billing for the PET scan. I was foolish enough to bring it to the attention of the billing team - as on account of their oversight we had to spend an additional 4 hours at the hospital as they send revised bills to the insurance company without bothering to explain to them that they had made a mistake in billing.
The issue finally got resolved after I made numerous calls to the insurance company and demanded that a senior person take charge. I also demanded to meet the MS or the Astt MS, but I was told both were not in hospital. Incidentally, while I was going through this nightmare in billing, another couple were loudly complaining about the ineffectiveness of the hospital.
The nursing staff in the ward is completely clueless about what is going on and also did not appear very competent - they kept on moving the canula on my father's arm and a couple of times there was bleeding from the canula that they failed to notice and I had to call them to fix it.
And finally, the hospital security - some of the security guards behave like they are bouncers at a pub and the poor harried attendant who is running around from floor to floor on account of the sheer all-round incompetence of the hospital is treated with extreme rudeness for things like daring to forget the attendant pass!
I find nothing, absolutely nothing, to recommend about this hospital - all they have is a fancy building and LOTS of "staff" but not one of that staff is either competent or polite.
I repeat, it is better to stay at home and do nothing than go to this hospital, because going to this hospital will make you poorer in health and in bank balance.
