Medical aid or ailment?

It’s amazing how even the best of medical facilities are supposed to be available in Mumbai.

I’ve spent the last decade in & out of hospitals and can only say.. the best is surely not available in Mumbai.

To fight cancer is like fighting for life each day against a force that is destined to win each time.

I am just flabbergasted & personally disturbed at the lax attitude of medical practitioners, attendants, nurses & technicians of Bombay Hospital.

If I had to list of the mistakes and lapses in the system in my stay of 10 days I would have questioned most of the pillars of the processes at this hospital.

Scene 1:

Let me begin with doctors- who are the only support and faith by which you decide which hospital you would like to take treatment in. In fact, it is the doctor that decides for you because his availability is crucial to your treatment. To share, in an emergency, the hospital staff informs me that they do not have permission to call the doctor in charge. They are dictated to call the resident doctor, who in turn, will speak to the doctor in charge for the emergency. Let me point out here that there is a lag in time for all of this! Which of course, the patient is paying for by suffering & awaiting for medical attention.

In addition, the nurse’s station is to dial an operator who will then dial the doctor who needs to be called…. Again, in an EMERGENCY.

I ask, is the medical decision & experience of a resident doctor sufficient to attend to an emergency? As a patient, I would not rely on a doctor under training ( resident doctor) to take these calls. For them, it is routine- if this happens, this is the prescribed medicine, but what if there is a medical history that the resident doctor isn’t aware of? Well, step in relative of patient on whom this due diligence lies. The relative is the one point archival of medical history that needs to be reminded to the resident doctor & double-checked before giving this prescribed medicine. What if I forget to mention I have diabetes and blood pressure & the resident doctor orders the prescribed medicines to my aide? God alone help me because these are too many probabilities at the cost of a life.

Scene 2:


I am bed-ridden and I need to empty my bowels. I have to wait till someone attends to my bell, and if someone attends, I am told to wait because ‘ the help’ is either with some other patient, not yet come to her duty on her shift, is on her way, has gone down with some patient getting discharged etc. Well, by the time I finished this list, my bowels have decided to do their job anyway. Now, I am still waiting to be cleaned because the ‘help’ is still …..

Scene 3

I have been advised by my doctor in charge to undergo an advance x-ray examination. The orders of this have been orally given by him & noted down by the resident doctor who happens to tag along with him to all his patients. Resident doctor forgets to give enough detail in the written orders simply because he’s having a bad day. Result? I am wheeled out of my room after much fuss & commotion by all the ‘helps’ on the floor, taken to a different floor, made to wait in anxiety for half an hour, only to be questioned by the technician there on the details of this examination! My reply ‘ Please call the doctor in charge & confirm’. But, this is not what procedure allows. As detailed earlier, hospital staff can call the resident doctor only, who in turn calls the doctor in charge and then reverts with clarifications. By the time all this happens, I have completed an advanced x-ray examination for my brain instead of my limb.

Upon seeking clarification, I am informed that I will have to do a repeat of this whole exercise the next morning because the resident doctor made a mistake.
After much fuss & commotion again, I am finally comfortable on my bed after 2 hours but completely disturbed at the whole exercise needing to be repeated the next morning.
I am still the patient & admitted into the hospital for getting better.

Scene 4

I am finally back at the examination room the next morning for my ‘right’ body part to be x-rayed. After 3 hours of noisy machines scanning my limb and deafening me, I am safe in my bed.
Evening comes only with news that my USG report submitted this morning as an additional document for my examination has been successfully lost.

Does this ever get over??

After getting so far, I am going to save you the trouble of many other small & large scenes that I have witnessed and just ask you – are you getting the best medical attention in Bombay Hospital?