[Resolved]  Fortis Hospital — Callous attitude of the doctors and staff at Fortis

This complaint is about the careless attitude of the doctors and nurses at Fortis Hospital, NOIDA. On Mar 19, 2009, I lost my father due to a cardiac arrest.

On Mar 11, 2009, my father was admitted to Fortis hospital, NOIDA as he was not feeling well. As soon as we rushed him to hospital, the doctors attended to him. After a few minutes we were asked to make an advance payment after which they planned to shift him to ICU. The billing staff took almost 15-20 minutes to fill out the forms and process the payment. As soon I completed the formalities and went back to my father I saw that he was unconscious. The doctor on duty attended to him and told us that he had a respiratory arrest. He was then shifted to the ICU. During the next couple of hours we were clueless as to what was happening as nobody bothered to inform us. We were told that we will be called as soon as the doctors have attended to him. Almost 2 hours later we were told that they will keep him in ICU and they have sent the blood samples to determine if there was any infection in the lungs which caused the respiratory arrest. We were informed that we will get any reports that we need so that we can get a second opinion from any other place that we want.

However, we really had to run around to get a copy of the report. Each day doctors kept saying a different thing about his condition and we were totally lost as to what was happening.

It also seems that taking payments from the patients was of more importance that treating the patient. We were making payments daily as soon as we reached the hospital in the morning. However, we would still keep getting calls in the morning telling us about the payment that was due for the day. When I told them that you do not need to remind me as I am making the payments on my own, I was told that this is the protocol and they need to follow it.

On their part the hospital was very prompt, when it came to asking for payments. But when I required anything like reports or a break-up of the charges, I was made to run around.

There seemed to be discrepancies in the charges also. When I got a detailed break-up of the charges after 3 days, I noticed that there were entries for gloves almost 100-200 gloves being used each day. When I questioned them, I was told different things - that this is not the final bill, or it might has been an error. Then I was made to run around to diffrent people from the Patient Welfare Officer to the nursing supervisor and attendant. In the end, I was told rudely, that they only charge for things that they use. Surprisingly, no gloves were charged for after that date. Gloves were one thing that I could notice because of the high number. I can't even comment on the medicines and other things things that they billed for.

On Mar 18, 2009, my father was shifted out of the ICU. Before that he was conscious and talking to us. His condition seemed to worsen and he was unconscious once he was shifted out of the ICU. We kept on asking the nursing staff and the doctors and they said it was normal as the CO2 level was high. Nobody seemed to bother. Later in the evening he had a cardiac arrest and had to be shifted to the ICU again. But maybe it was too late. He passed away the next morning.

A comment about the nursing staff too. As we were allowed to visit my father in the ICU only twice in a day, we called up at night and early in the morning to inquire about his health. However, the kind of answers that we received were not worthy of the noble profession of nursing. At times we were rudely told that you will be visiting him in the morning so you can check his condition then. The least that they can do is to be courteous and polite to people who are already going though a lot of mental agony.

Fortis' vision is "creating a world-class integrated healthcare delivery system in India, entailing the finest medical skills combined with compassionate patient care". However, this does not reflect anywhere in the kind of service that they provide.

Nothing I do or say can bring him back. The least I can do through this forum is to make other people aware about the kind of service that is provided at Fortis, NOIDA. I do hope and pray that nobody else goes through this kind of experience.

Regards,
Amit