Dear Sir/Madam,
We had come to Appolo hospital, Vanagaram in Chennai on Oct 26th 2022 for a second opinion for my Grandmother. My grandmother’s (77 age as per Govt record, actual age is 84) health concerns are:
1. She lost her ability to speak and 2. Requires support for walking.
We met Dr. Ghosh and he insisted we admit her for observation for 4-5days for him to meaningfully diagnose my grandmother and treat accordingly. He said admission would be better as it would require 4-5days compared to a near equivalent treatment in OPD that will take 10days. Much to our dislike, we reluctantly agreed to admit her, hoping to exhaust all options and justify to ourselves that we tried everything possible.
So she gets admitted and my father (in his 60s) decides to attend her and I sheltered myself in a nearby lodge owing to office work.
1. They provided Scalp shampoo - a dandruff treatment medicine. My grandma never had a dandruff issue and this was never something we visited Apollo for. Also, wondering how is this relevant when we got her admitted for nerve related issue and not dermatology.
2. They pressured us to do another MRI. We had recently done the MRI in Manipal Bangalore (mind it no small hospital, and used a Philips machine) on Sept 29th. It's very stressful for an elderly lady to undergo MRI especially when she lost her speaking ability. We didn’t agree to this.
3. Billed us for 3 visits of Dr. Ghosh at ₹1, 500 each. This is inaccurate. The doctor visited just once that too at the time of discharge. The explanation given was his team called the doctor and took instructions on phone hence the Dr.Ghosh’s charges would apply. Sorry, this is not done. You can't charge me that way. This is unfair.
4. What was the need to do glucose/sugar test with a home kit (Accu-chek instant) when HB1AC clearly showed there was no sugar? In fact, reports (dated Sept 2022) from Manipal hospital too mentioned the same. Assuming You may have a medical compulsion to do both tests, how did you bill me ₹1, 400 for 50 strips, this is more than the MRP. Infact your very own Apollo 24/7 medicine delivery shows it at ₹892. You stole all the unused strips and upon questioning, only 12 strips were returned. THIS IS CHEAP OF A HOSPITAL OF YOUR STATURE.
5. In the morning of Oct 28th (date of discharge) your staff took away unused medicines and products in the pretext of unbilling them from the final invoice. To our unpleasant surprise, they stole it again. While we found them in billed in the final invoice, some of the unused items were never returned to us. E.g, the sanitizer. Upon questioning, they arranged a half-used sanitizer bottle.
6. Nitrile gloves - ₹1, 200 for 100 pairs/pcs. I’m convinced this is high margin item for you. For a patient admitted for observation only for ~4days, 100 pairs are never going to be used. For the largest hospital chain in India, how difficult is it for you to get your vendors to offer these gloves in smaller packs of 10/20 pairs? While these were returned to us, we have no meaningful use of the same. If not for anything, can you be a little considerate to the environment and as a secondary effect, on the pockets of gullible patients?
To sum up my experience, Apollo is headed in the same direction as most private healthcare providers in West Bengal. Being a market researcher myself these are some areas that plague West Bengal’s healthcare system: excessive billing, excessive treatment, unnecessary tests, inaccurate commitment, highly sales, target-oriented, money over treatment attitude, inability to satisfactorily answer patients, and many others. The result, low confirmation in Bengal’s healthcare system and mass exodus of Bengali patients to Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
Unfortunately, you too are headed on the same route and at this pace, you will soon catch/surpass Bengal’s level. Just a matter of time. The satisfaction I have had in Manipal is they were clear and set the expectations clear, in your case I have more questions than answers.
While writing this, I don't know what happened over the 3 days of the admission.
1. How did the admission help given the time and resources we spent?
2. What discoveries have you made in addition to what was already known?
3. Did you find any observable evidence suggesting a ray of hope where we can expect an uptick in my Grandma’s health?
Regards,
Amit Paul
On Behalf of Shephali Paul
