Max Hospital — death of a patient, satyabrata pal

Address:

C-40, Sector 14, Noida 201301., Gautam Buddh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, 201301

C-40, sector 14, noida – 201301, 22.10.19
Toms. Rajyashree sengupta,
Maxhospital 
Dear ms. Sengupta,        
  my husband satyabrata pal, aged 70 years died on 24th september 2019, early morning, at the icu ward of max hospital, patparganj.  it has been very very painful for me torecount what happened prior to his death which is why i am writing now, almost a month after his death,  even though the pain has not gone away, may never do away.   he was first admitted this year toyour hospital on 13.9.2019, on the advice of dr. Rajesh gupta, neurological consultant at max patparganj, whom we had consulted on the 12th of september.  he hadsuggested immediate admission so we came to max the next day.   as my husband retired as high commissioner topakistan, a job on par with that of a secretary in new delhi, he was entitled to a private room under the cghs scheme.
When i took my husband to the emergency section of maxhospital the next day, my husband was admitted to the hospital and i filled inthe registration forms after waiting for over an hour. However in the evening, i was advised by preethi who described herself as relationship manager, thatthey could not accommodate him in max. I went to the section where rooms areallotted and got no joy there either. Preethi told me that she had made arrangements to accommodate him in jain hospital in anand vihar. She said that she knew the place well and that max had links with jain hospital, and that they would be able to do the dsa test advised by dr. Gupta. Preethi laid out the max ambulance and we were driven to jain hospital. On reaching the hospital, i was welcomed by a huge garbage container near the reception counter. I was appalled by the lack ofcleanliness in the room we were given and changed to another room. Here too thebathroom was not clean, with dirt in the grout, and filthy floors. Plus the air conditioner did not work.in short, theplace was shambolic, nothing like the picture that we had been given bypreethi. The travel to jain hospital had a detrimental effect on my husband andwe found that he could no longer urinate. My husband was given a grimy, filthy, rusty wheelchair with a hole in the middle, under which a dirty waste paper basket was placed to pee. I tried to clean it as best i could but must confessthat years of grime cannot be removed that easily. So i did not seat him on that. hospital staff, cleaners and nurses tried to lift him up and take him to the bathroom to urinate but it was not possible. The attending doctor was clueless.

Thoroughly dissatisfied with the services provided, i reached out to people who could facilitate his return to max so that he could be operated, the very next day. This is not something my husband or i would ever do, nor have ever done in his long career, but these were extraordinary circumstances and so i did. This time,  max vaishali and max patparganj both offered to take him but i chose the patparganj hospital because that was where his doctor and surgeon were. So we returned to max hospital patparganj on the 15th of september, after having spent one and a half days at jain hospital. Three years ago my husband had been hit by a cow and been successfully operated on by dr. Sanjeev dua, the neurosurgeon at maxhospital, patparganj.  about two yearsago, he advised me to consult dr. Rajesh gupta who has been able to bring about great changes in his condition. He was even doing the most difficult sudoku, in under 9 minutes, and he waswalking and even talking. His long term memory had returned and his short termmemory was returning, though not yet perfect. And except for the tumour of blood vessels which had created problems where his mobility was concerned, he was in really good health.  this time on the staff filled in the requisite forms and i only had to sign it at the end. We moved him to the private room that had been provided, but by then the damage had been done. He was diagnosed with chest congestion which did not respond to the antibiotics given and he died in the icu ward on the 24th. He did not live to get his tumour removed.
 when he was brought into max the firsttime, he had no infection and i can only imagine that hecaught this infection at jain hospital or at max. I would like to know 1)    why was my husband farmed out to jainhospital when he had already been registered in max?   is this because he was a cghs patient? Don’tall patients need the same care and consideration? Why should i have to speakto the powers that be to get the medical aid that my husband was entitled to? The person who facilitated his return to max asked me if i was willing to pay the going rate to the hospital, instead of the cghs facility, which was very telling. What it told me was that if i paid more, he would stand a greater chance to get a room. It did not come to that, however. 2)    why was jain hospital not checked out for cleanliness and efficiency before being recommended to me? I had been assured about its cleanliness and efficiency by preethi but after visiting it, i am sure she had not checked it out. It is callousness of the highest degree that we were fobbed off to a sub standard facility. It would have been much better if we had been asked to take him home. He would have been alive today. 3)    why is it that when patients are taken to places where the dsa test and such like are done, they are not given masks to wear as they have to pass through areas where there are patients sitting waiting for their turn at the opd?
4)    whywas the antibiotic not changed as soon as possible when it was found to have no effect? I know the sputum test results had not come in, but more aggressive treatments are called for when the situation is dire as his indeed was.  i am no medical doctor, but i consulted a very good one, who suggested an immediate change in antibiotics, but it was either not done, or done too late.  even simple steps like using steam and nebulizer were not done. They could have saved his life, and i would not have been widowed, living alone, as i am today.in other words, my husband died of a hospital induced infection and  i have to live without him because your staff was found wanting. I caught the same infection from him and as i am asthmatic, it took me 20 days to recover, but i recovered because i was not in your hospital. Please do something to save other patients from the same problems. Every patient is not just a patient, but someone’s father, husband or partner. It pains me to revisit all this, but i am doing so to ensure that others do not have to suffer like this. Please let me know what you have to say to all this. And for me, i will have to live with the fact that i will have to lead the restof my life alone. Without the outstandingly brilliant, compassionate man that my husband was.
Yours sincerely, shreedevi nair pal