Cardiac only care - What about others?. Review on Frontier Lifeline Hospital - Mogappair - Chennai

We had to admit our father to this hospital recently on emergency basis.  I must say that the hospital doctors have taken immediate steps in the emergency and recovered his life.   I thank them truly from bottom of my heart.  My father seemed to have had a mild heart attack.  After keeping him there in ICU about few days and he was brought  to normal ward recovery.  Angiogram test was performed in next two days where it got revealed that there are some blocks in heart and have to go for "Bypass" Surgery.  Based on the discussions with Cardiologist, we decided to continue the treatment there itself and finish the surgery at one sitting.  We have told that the surgery will be done only 5 days later, as some medication had to be stopped for 5 days before surgery. Till this time, everything was fine and we were very much satisfied with the treatment given.

Now comes the twisting tale, after two days my father got some fever and chills, hospital doctors were treating him for lung infection, Urinary infection, etc. taking him in and out of ICU and normal ward couple of times.  They were doing series of tests and scans and it seems they were administrating too many antibiotics without any clue.

After couple of days, Cardiologist came to us and told that my father is having some kidney stones causing the infection and when we asked whether we can treat him there, he told us furiously "we are treating him no..." and he said he will have nephrologist and urologist visit the hospital to attend my father.  This has been told to us sometime around 9am in the morning. The hospital doesn't have any in house specialist for other specialities like urology, neurology, etc.  Nephrologist came sometime in the afternoon and seen my father at ICU but no body informed us. (Remember, one of the family member always sitting outside the ICU 24x7). Cardiologist met us around 5 pm and aksed us did we speak to Nephrologist and we told him that we are not aware of the Nephrology visit.    Then the cardilogist told  the ICU staff that when the Urologist comes to see my father, to inform us.  Okay, we were waiting, waiting and finally the Urologist came to visit my father in the ICU at around 10:30pm in the night.  He called us and told there are some stones in father's kidney, but said that is not a major concern, concern is only the heart problem which had to be attended immediately.  Well, we thought all is fine, because for the heart problem we are in the Super specialty hospital.  But again in the morning the Cardiologist came and told my father heart is stable now and it is kidney problem must be attended immediately on emergency as it is causing infection .  What a contradicting opinion between Cardiolist and Urologist.  Well I must admit that the Cardiologist is correct, but why the hell the hospital  waste couple of days for the speciality that they are not able to attend to.  Also they brought some ineffecient Urologist, who only spoils their hosptial name. Cardiologist also advised us to shift my father to multi-speciality hospital on high priority.

Then we later took my father to another Super Specialty hospital and found his kidney stone is very big and been obstructing the urinary path  and have caused huge infection in the body and been treated for that.

Pros:

1) This hospital is known for Cardiac Super Speciality and have highly skilled Cardiologists and Cardiac Surgeons.

2) Emergency CAre is very good at this hospital.3) Nursing staff and medical care are good.

Cons:

*1) The pro. no. 1 above is a major con.  While the hospital is too much focussing on Cardiac related problem, I don't see any approach in treating a patient on overall basis.  For example it will be mostly aged person who gets to have Cardiac issue, and they might be having mutiple organ disorder like brain, kidney, gaestro, etc. for which they do not have any inhouse speciality doctors.  They have to bring the other specialists from outside and they come at very odd times like midnight etc.  Also I do not see any "verbal" discussion between the attending Cardiologist and these outside speciality doctors, which is a major drawback.  (In the case of multi-speciality hospitals I have seen cardilogist taking to Urologist, Neurolgist directly)

2) POOR COMMUNICATION!!! The Communication to the family members  about the status of the patient and the treatment given is very very poor.  The Cardiologist attending my father hardly speak for 10-20 seconds to us!!! yes only about 20 seconds maximum...Very dissappointed!!!!

3) POOR STAFF ATTITUDE!!!I'm surprised to see the poor attitude of administravtive staffs like PRO, medical insurance and Billing, in a hospital like this. (The chariman and CEO of this hospital is the world famous Dr. Cherian). There is no clear response.  Especially in billing their attitude seemed very rude and unfriendly.  Despite having a decent Corportae  medical insurnace, they insisted on huge suspense amount. And we can see their attitude is quite different towards the international patients, very friendly with them.   There is no respect for Indians within India :-(

Recommendation:

My recommendation about this hospital is that if one needs only the "Cardiac related Care", then this hospital should be good.  But if one needs multiple speciality medical treatment requirments, then it is better to go for a mutli-speciality hosptial, where they take complete care in all specialities.