Jul 08, 2024 05:10 PM
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Horrible experience and really shock to see the kind of treatment is provided to patients within ICU after spending lacs of rupees in such a big Well- Known Hospital.
In nutshell it is not a hospital now who care for the patients but a systematic and well=planned money menting Industry. Few years back it was very good. Seems post covid the situation has drastically changed/or mgmt might have changed and the new mgmt. is very confident about their leads.
The entire ICU 10th floor is managed by few 4-5 doctors who are of just 8-10 years of experience and termed as -ICU-consultant doctors. The number of doctors viz patient ratio is very bad. If there are 40 patients in ICU ward, then there are hardly 5 experience doctors which I mentioned above with few more junior doctors’ teams. 1-2 senior doctors will have a round at night after finishing off with their OPD patients. That also you don’t know whether it is regular or not. Only when you asked for a senior doctor as a patient relative then the ICU consultant will inform them. It’s like cost cutting business strategy we see in big corporates where more work is done with less experience people to save the overall cost. But here this is health care Industry and there should be more attention as we are dealing with human life. They treat as if min target of bill should arrive to around 15 lacs for any patient in ICU.
This review I am writing after all the observations I have seen with my own eyes, lost my loved one after 3 weeks who was admitted in ICU 10th floor and feedback taken from many such families who were in ICU-waiting area. Hence don't consider or think for a sec that this scenario may be one of case or exceptional case coz similar pattern of treatments or patient handling have seen for another 8-10 patients too. Out of these 8-10 families I saw 4 people passed away including young and old person. If you really care for your loved ones/family then after reading this experience kindly take immediate action to shift your patient to another hospital by demanding urgent discharge if your patient is now already admitted. They will emotionally fear your mindset so that you will be weak in your decisions but be alert else there are high chances that you lose your patient forever.
Here is the quick summary how this Hospital works and you can't catch anybody's neck here coz everything is well planned and executed very professionally. Each department is linked internally. This Industry is a giant fish in the big ocean where legally also you will not succeed just waste your time and money. Better we don’t take risk of our loved one to get treated here.
We admitted our patient in day time from an emergency entry few months back. They took our patient inside for initial checks and within 30 mins the ICU doctor informed us that your patient needs to be admitted on 10th floor ICU as we can see patient has urine infection. The counter staff took the details for admission process and asked us to pay 2, 25, 000 rupees on the spot. We said that we have an insurance but that point was ignored and they forced us to pay the full money and not even 50% of the amount was accepted. We were told that insurance you can check later with your company, first pay money. Finally, we ended up paying 200, 000 lacs rupees coz our patient needed treatment.
Post that patient was shifted to 10th floor-ICU and several blood tests were commenced. In late evening, our bed number was called so we went inside the ICU and we were told that patient has got cardiac arrest and we are trying to save the patient with shock treatment. The patient needs immediate ventilator/oxygen support and was provided ventilator support for few days. The nurses hired in ICU are totally immature in their work and process. They all are teen agers who might have just completed their nursing college/course for 2 years within the same hospital and then their placement is done in ICU. The people who are reading this review and anyone's patient is currently in ICU can believe this quickly. The way they handle the patients as if they are not human beings and some machines placed on the beds. 95% of the nurse’s time is consumed in filling their daily tracking sheet which is a massive excel like sheet. Half of them don't even see the patient face, they are just busy observing the numbers on different machines and noting down on sheet. Thats all. Many of them are from south of India where they don’t even understand Hindi, Marathi or English. Their head-nurse majority of the time is not available. I saw many of them are so new to their work that in front of patient only they are discussing with each other what to filled in the tracking sheet and which column to update. In front of me one of the patients in ICU asking the nurse for the dinner as she has not received her food by 9:45 PM also. The nurse quickly said that earlier nurse shift is over and she will be back tom and I will arrange the food. The next day in ICU evening I saw another patient which was next to our patient shouting at the nurse’s coz the regular medicines which were supposed to given were missed. Another patient relative complained the ICU nurse that there was insect in food found and they were about to give to the patient. Just see the hygiene controls here. Should the patient remind the nurse for medicine or food? Imagine such level of service you are getting for the patients who are in ICU and you are not aware coz you are asked to wait whole day in waiting area and they will call accordingly. [First pathetic experience]
After 3 days we were told that your patient need blood and please meet on 6th or 7th floor- blood department. This blood department runs like proper government hospital. From 6th or 7th floor they keep on calling the nurse station on 10th floor and will ask the nurse to send the patient's relatives. As soon as you go down with your tensions you come to know their cabin is empty. You need to wait, how long depends upon their own time. Then they will force you indirectly to bring the donor stating it is for humanity cause and they want exactly of same group. They will chase you everyday 2-3 times as if the donors are easily available of same group on the roads. Plus, they charged good amount to patient’s by giving the blood from their blood centre also. Now you have to arrange blood somehow whether you are from Mumbai or outside Mumbai that is your lookout. They will mentally harass you till the time you don’t bring any physical donor. The number of blood bottles they will provide, in return you need to give them number of donors. That's the equation they have set. They will not give anything in writing which plasma/blood they want coz then it becomes official hence all the harassment/donor discussion only on calls and you have to keep meeting them in morning, afternoon, evening etc/or stand outside their cabin. You will get a sense as if you are secretary to them and getting their work done with our time and energy. [Second pathetic experience]
After 4-5 days are passed, the ICU consultant doctor will give you some good news that patient's so and so case is getting better so that you are happy. Immediately next day you will be informed that patient liver or heart or kidney is not functioning good and high expensive reports are needed to screened out immediately to know better situations. So, you end up with more money and hospital meter goes on increasing. We were informed that heart is not functioning properly and for few more days we will continue on ventilator, discontinue the ventilator for few days, keep under observation etc. Till then it was already 10 days in ICU with bill crossing more than 9 lacs. Average bill per day in ICU is around 95000 to 1 lac. Imagine the situation. Till then your patient will be unconscious lying on bed. You will be given the reason that we have sedated the patient so that he/she gets good relief. In my case my loved one did not even open the eyes for 15 days. Everything you have to signed on paper so that hospital is safe and no legal procedure can start on them. Till the last breath of my loved one, his eyes were not open.
Then we were informed after 10 days by ICU consultant that there is last option which hospital can try but we are not sure whether it will be successful or no. On other side they will also say that it might give more relief in patient's breathing & that was undergoing patient's surgery which is called as tracheostomy. As a patient family member, you don’t have option at that time and you will give go ahead for same and that is what we did. Immediately you will be asked to meet the admission counter to get the surgical clearance paper. This department will inform you that whatever is the amount outstanding for your patient you pay in full at the same time without which you will not get the surgical clearance paper and your patient surgery will not proceed. So, if 9 lacs are o/s on that day and then you have to pay it by hook or crook whether by cash, card, online etc including this surgery cost too. If you wait next day, the bill will be added more with the next day ICU bed and services charges. How you arrange money at that time is your lookout even if your partial Mediclaim is approved. [Third pathetic experience]
After the surgery they informed us that patient health is not improving and you take a decision whether you want to go ahead and continue with the ICU treatment or get a discharge [DAMA- Discharge against medical advice]/ Stop further treatment etc. Finally, my family member passed away after the life struggle of 3 weeks.
To prepare the death summary the ICU staff took 3 hrs. I already informed them that I need to take patient very far from the hospital and please complete your procedure soon but seems it is their regular BAU activities. The death summary can be prepared by some junior doctors only and not nurse and the doctor were busy with other patients who needed life support. Then the mortuary department will approach you and take your patient's body to basement and follow their process.
Then we are asked to meet billing department. Billing department informed that in system the status of patient is not updated. Please get it touch with ICU nurse and ask them. So again, from ground floor we have to visit 10th Floor and inform the nurse there. They took another 30 mins. Post that again you need to get clearance from billing department to show to the mortuary department in basement. The mortuary department informed us that in their system the patient status is not reflecting. See how like government process all these departments operate. They are least bother whether your patient is alive or dead. After waiting 20 mins we went back to 10th floor and asked the nurse to visit mortuary department coz unless she does not sign, the mortuary department will not release you the body. Till then we met the department who take care of Ambulance service. They gave us a surprise saying our ambulance service is for only alive people and not dead person. Please arrange ambulance from outside hospital. Connecting with external Ambulance and arranging took another 50 mins. The person who has passed away at 7 Am in morning, we were given the body at around 3 PM. Just imagine how frustrating all these things when your patient is already passed away and you need another time to perform his last rituals. [Fourth pathetic experience]
All such things happen in so call well known Hospital. We blindly trust them paying huge amount of money and even after paying so high amount, the service in hospital is totally worst. There is complaint procedure in hospital but they will indirectly close it saying that what reports says etc etc. So, no point of approaching them. If you really care your person then think over what I have summarized. We know this happened in many hospitals today but still there are good hospitals in Mumbai where you can get better treatment with less money too for your patient.
