Recently I had a minor sinus surgery being done at Fortis hospital Jaipur. Coming from US I was expecting cheap hospitals in India, but to my surprise Fortis hospital was not cheap from any angle. I accepted the fact assuming that probably higher cost will get me better service.
OPD (OUT-PATIENT) EXPERIENCE
Fortis encourages taking appointment before showing up at hospital and I did that. I was given appointment of 11 AM but the doctor didn't see me until 12:30 PM. In the very first meeting it was decided that I need a surgery since I had done a detailed investigation in US before coming to India. The doctor called me 6 times before surgery day. Some time he wants to see my reports, other times he wants to do endoscopy but he forgot to bring his endoscopy instruments etc. For exactly same surgery in USA doctor only called me twice before surgery day.
The Departments of hospital are also not well integrated. Anesthetist sent me for some tests. When I reached lab departments they needed a form with doctor’s signature which the doctor did not give me. There were many such small instances which made me go from one door to another to fulfill one or the other request. It seems like I was in a government department trying to take a electricity connection.
OPERATION DAY AND IN-PATIENT
Soon (or may be after lot pain) operation day came. When I reached at admission counter, the admission guys needed me to bring a form signed by doctor from emergency department. They had absolutely no reason why they need this form. After admitting i was taken to Operation Theater in a stretcher and was left in a hall where several other patients were lying in their stretcher waiting for operation to happen. After some wait I was taken to Operation Theater.
Post surgery experience is one of the worst. As soon as I became conscious I was feeling cold. I called up for blankets in my weak voice but no one listened. There were very few nurses, quite far from where I was lying. Most of these nurses are less concerned about how does a human feel post surgery. I kept waiting for my voice to become louder. After 20 minutes when i could speak louder I shouted for the nurse. Finally a nurse came and gave me a blanket. Nurse went away without asking if one blanket was enough or not. I was still feeling cold and called again for the nurse. After some time a nurse came and gave me another blanket and on my request arranged for a heater in 20 minutes. According to him there was only one heater in the whole ICU. After some time another nurse came and took my heater away saying another patient needs it. After this struggle I was shifted to ward.
Experience in ward was like the one you will have in SMS hospital (little bit exaggerated). If you ring the bell to call nurse, a ward boy will come. And if you are able to convince the boy then he will send nurse but that too after 10 minutes. You will never have your meals in time and food department never full fills their promise.
The only good thing about whole experience was that my doctor was good and very experienced.
SUMMARY
To summarize i think it makes no sense to go to Fortis if you can catch hold of a good doctor in a smaller hospital.
NOTES FOR FORTIS HOSPITAL DEPARTMENT
1. All departments should operate in their own spaces and needs proper integration.
2. Hospital needs more computerization and need to go paperless as appropriate.
3. Hospital probably needs x staff and currently they have hired 3x. Instead of hiring so many non-motivated people they should hire few employees and pay them higher. These highly paid individuals will be motivated to serve customer better.
4. Hospital should think that patients time is as important as their doctors and change operations accordingly.
