EMERGENCY ROOM IS A JOKE. Review on Apollo Proton Cancer Centre - Tharamani - Chennai

Please note this is not a feedback on Drs Roshni, Abdul or Ashwathy.

The attending emergency doctor (lady doctor) on July 27th 2023 was TERRIBLE!

1. We came to hospital upon instructions from the primary team about the seizures the patient had. We came in at around 11 pm. (Patient was undergoing treatment in APCC and hence brought to this ER)

2. The INEXPERIENCE of the attending emergency doctor was very evident from the start. She was constantly on the phone getting instructions from the ICU doctor. The family of the patient needs to have confidence in the ER doctor and her being on the phone getting instructions is not at all reassuring. I have seen Dr Roshni in the same situation (at this point we had come in two times before this in the past few weeks) and she handled everything very well (so I am aware of how things should work when we come to the ER)

3. She would not listen to me when I was trying to tell her what the primary team said about which medicines to give. I could hear from her conversation with the ICU doctor that there was a DISCONNECT between what the primary team (neuro-oncology) told me and what the ICU doctor said.

4. The approach was very slow because she was waiting for more instructions from the ICU doctor (if ER is instructions based I think your highly experienced nurses can man the ER).

5. She did not know how to use your systems to retrieve the history of the patients with the UHID ( I heard the nurses explain to her how to go about it). However, she MADE US GO BACK HOME and bring all the files so that she could look at the history. We obliged and got her the files. She never used them during the course of the night. I am not sure why in an emergency situation I am expected to carry all the files, when the patient is priority.

Further, given that we have made great strides in digitizing many things - I am not sure why this doctor made us go home to get the files (she never read it nor did she use anything once we got her the files).

6. They wanted to observe the patient and take a call on whether to hospitalize. We were waiting around in the ER for the doctor to brief us on this aspect. However, she walked out and I assumed she would come back and tell us the next steps. We waited for a bit before I asked the nurses about the steps forward. The nurses told me that it was decided that the patient needs to be admitted and to start the admission process. This information was known to the doctor before she left the ER and she should have briefed us. This is not how things should work at an international hospital. Your other ER doctors have always briefed us about the steps forward!

Her inexperience (something I can look past given that everyone needs to be given a chance) plus her terrible soft skills (there is no excuse for this) made for a PATHETIC experience in the ER. But then again why should I look past the inexperienced doctors when I am paying you a lot of money for your services?

APCC - please don’t feign ignorance about who this doctor is. I am being kind and not revealing her name on a public platform. But your ER is a joke. I know you are going to put in a standard response and not going to do anything about this.

Ps: The incident in the ER mentioned above was something I emailed the hospital as a formal feedback/ complaint. But they chose to ignore it because it’s convenient for them to do so.

Whilst the primary team doctors are good, certain doctors in the ER and chemo daycare are terrible. They are more like interns with absolutely no experience. I do not think these interns/ freshers also stick around too long. They all move on after a few months as per my discussion.