Saifee Hospital – A Lodge of an Experience&#. Review on Saifee Hospital - Girgaon - Mumbai

While driving down Marine Drive at night my Sister who returned from Hong Kong after a few years asked me “Bhaiya has Grand Hyatt opened up a Five Star at Charni Road also???” I smiled and replied it is a “Hospital in disguise…” Surprising though that holds true since there is no sine board to indicate to the public that it is a public hospital and not a five star hotel. “Wow!!!, amazing!!! Have you had the opportunity to visit the hotel sorry I mean the hospital from inside.”

Unfortunately Yes!!! My business partner was admitted for a Kidney Stone Surgery last week and we had a lodge of an experience. This Dawoodi Bohra community’s maiden initiative was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in the presence of the world wide Dawoodi Bohra community spiritual Head, Dr. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. The Rs 150 Crores hospital project has entirely been funded by Syedna personally, with the contributions from the international Dawoodi Bohra community. Saifee Hospital is a 14 level modern hospital with 33 specialised departments, 200 doctors and 295 beds & 700 medical and support personnel. Sounds impressive !!! It has Italian Marble and Granite Flooring throughout the hospital premises and it also happens to be centrally air-conditioned. It has a cafeteria that serves food that is catered by Mongines(obviously owned by a Bohri). Mongines surprisingly also caters to all the patients. The hospital that is having almost 300 beds has a small medical shop within the premises that surprisingly doesn’t have space enough to stock a D’cold syrup also since I had to buy it for my son. The hospital staff has been out sourced from Rare Hospitality – a company that supplies hospitality staff on contract basis.

“If it has such fantastic acoustics then why do you say that you had a lodge of an experience ???” my sister said. Well the hospitality industry is recognized by the services offered and not only by the structure, ambiance etc. The doctor had mentioned “URGENT” attendance to my partner and immediate admission only to get a very laid back attitude. If you get a laid back attendance on an URGENT note then I wonder what you get on an ordinary one. The X-Ray report that normally takes half an hour to one hour to reach the doctor could not reach the doctor even after 3 and half hours of poor communication between the two departments. By the time the report arrived the doctor had already left the hospital and hence could not comment on the decision of the operation. My partner was in severe pain and the pain killer injections were also not being that effective. When I requested just to see the X-Ray report I was very rudely turned down since I am not a medical person and I don’t understand anything about it. The anxious family members were left high and dry in the dark until I called the doctor on his mobile and he understood the report from the doctor on duty. We requested the nurse to shift the bed due to the inconvenient location of the bed which was also turned down because it was not possible due to system limitations. But the same bed was later changed and god knows how it was made possible. The hospital committed that the operation would be done on Saturday evening and we were all relaxed that he would get rid of the pain over the weekend and resume life on Monday. Waiting for the operation the whole day the patient only gets the doctor at 1.30 am i.e. on Sunday to confirm that the operation can only be conducted on Monday since Sunday is a HOLIDAY!!!. One has to only experience to really empathize with the kidney pain of the patient that finally got relief on Monday evening.

The surprises don’t end here but get carried till the discharge of the patient, where he had a harrowing time to seek discharge running around from pillar to post. He had to wait for nearly 3 hours again due to some mistakes and communication gaps by the inexperienced accounts and the hospital staff. When you do such a fantastic packaging of the product you raise similar expectations from the product and that is where it is a let down. The patient in a hospital needs timely attendance rather than the Italian marble and granite etc… It would have been better if a small portion of that 150 crores booty was utilized in providing better services to the patients.