Portea Medical — fake nursing services

My father in law was being discharged from the nursing home after a month. And we were advised to avail some nursing services at home for a couple of days. Submitted my enquiry to portea and their service was prompt. Their representative called me and spoke to me. He was polite and clearly mentioned the costs for hiring attendants and nurses other medical equipment like bed, oxygen cylinder etc.

1. I was informed attendants coming at a cost of rs. 550 for 12 hours, would be ‘more than ayah’. They would be able to maintain the general hygiene of the patient, would feed him and if reqd. Even through the rice tube. Give them medicines etc. And they wouldn’t wash patient’s clothes.
2. Since the doctor asked us to hire nurses, we opted for nurses at a cost of rs. 1000 per 12 hours.
3. Patient came home. Portea representatives arrived at my home for taking the advance for nursing services. The equipment came much later and that too after n number of phone calls.
4. My father in law had the channel on his wrist and it needed to be removed. So i asked the nurse to do so. And she did. The portea representative immediately went inside the patient’s room, talked to them in low tones and threatened them not to do such a thing again. Nurses were shocked and so were my husband and i.
5. Portea then clarified these nurses were not capable of changing a dressing, give an injection, remove channels etc etc. They could read level of oxygen in patient’s body and give oxygen and read the bp. Well, even we are capable of doing that!
6. So basically what we had was a nurse who was one only in name but doing the duty of an attendant (Though the nurses kept on telling us they do everything in other hospitals in the city and named some renowned hospitals). Portea said if we wanted services like changing a dressing, etc etc. We should hire rs. 1400 per 12 hour nurses.
7. They duped us. They should have a list of activities for every service rendered so that it is transparent to the patient’s family.
8. The back rest we ordered was also something which most of their nurses said was not good.
9. And coming to nurses who were supposed to maintain hygiene, well, they wore the same uniform for days at a stretch. One of the nurses did not even bother to wash her feet after entering our home one morning and climbed on to my father-in-law’s bed to adjust him. So much for hygiene.
10. The nurses used to powder the medicines in a mortar-pestle. They never washed it after use and used to leave it exposed.
11. Most of the nurses loved to sleep and one of them gave me the biggest irritated look when i woke her up at 4:30 in the evening to feed my father-in-law.
12. Well, the list is endless. Portea ofcourse did not have much to refute when i pointed these out.

So, whoever is on the look out for hiring the services of portea, please refrain.