Tata Memorial Hospital — Improper treatment and delay

Address:	Mumbai City, Maharashtra, 400012
Website:	tmc.gov.in

Improper treatment leading to suffering and death
My mother had a small lump on her gums, we immediately took her to Tata hospital. Biopsy was performed twice or thrice and doctors kept saying it is inflammation and not cancer and we were sent home.
In few days it started bleeding heavily and the lump increased much more. Doctors then performed a deep biopsy which revealed that she had sarcoma which is a rare form of cancer in her gums. It was shocking for us to know that such huge hospital could not detect cancer repetitively.
What followed was a series o[censored]ncertain events. It took nearly 8 to 10 days for every report which increased the delay and caused the tumor to grow as big as approx. 8cm*8cm outside her mouth. Now the doctors came back saying its too huge to be operated and she needs to be given chemo.
We repeatedly asked if she is fit for chemo and the doctors assured us that we wont give chemo unless we assess the patient properly. With their assurance and conviction we went ahead with chemo.
She was fine 1 day after chemo and the chemo doctor told us to take her home. We insisted to keep her long since the tumor bled a lot and it was not manageable at home. Her condition became extremely bad starting from second day after chemo. Had we taken her home based on the chemo doctor's advise I don't know what we would have done.
She started getting breathless and xrays/2d echo showed enlarged heart and a valve of heart not functioning well. Again the chemo doctors started throwing it back on us saying that she already had a heart problem which have worsened because of chemo. As per our knowledge my mother never had any heart problem ever. I asked the doctors why didn't they assess her heart condition then before giving chemo for which they didn't have any answer.
She developed all sorts of deficiencies and severe infections. And then started strong doses of continuous antibiotics. Funny thing is in such a state also the chemo doctor was planning for a second chemo round. We fought with the doctors to remove tumor instead of second chemo for which they agreed. Now we were waiting for mom to recover but unfortunately she started getting panic attacks, speaking in sleep and confusion. We suspected its due to strong antibiotics but as per doctor it was her heart problem and they shifted her to ICU for monitoring.
Don't know what happened the first day in ICU that they intubated and put her on ventilator. One doctor told us it was carbondioxide narcosis and other doctors said she went into cardiac arrest. I am still confused what went wrong that day. When she was out of ICU she would get little breathless when she had cough but after cough removal she would be fine. I tried to ask if same could have happened but was told by the doctors to not try to be google doctor.
Post that she developed lung infection, pneumonia, icu related infections, tumor infection etc. ICU doctors told surgeons that the tumor is the main source of fungus infection but the surgeons argued that it cannot be that way as per their experience. However reports proved the surgeons wrong. Don't know where their experience went. They had to perform emergency tumor removal since the fungus from tumor started spreading to the blood. She was in a very bad condition, on ventilator, on IV line, urine catherar etc. still they did a successful surgery and removed the tumor. Why the heck didn't they remove the tumor before giving chemo when my mom was physically fit. Chemo doctors also said the same thing and blamed the surgeons for not performing operation before and referring the patient for chemo. They said that they knew that chemo wont work on such a kind of tumor and left us confused as to why did they even give the chemo then.
Few days later her kidneys stopped functioning, bp went very low, platelets went very low and she couldn't survive. She died in front of my eyes, all her vitals went low. She was not conscious but when I shouted in her ears, she did strain her eyes and tears fell which made us feel that she listened to my voice. We never got to talk to her, discuss how she is feeling. She did have cancer but we could never have suspected that the treatment would cause her death.
She spent over 3 months in that hospital due to all this. She so wanted to come home. But was never able to.
The ICU reported around 10 cases of death in a similar manner in 2 weeks. Patients are unwell when they are brought to ICU. But they really die due to ICU infection and not due to their original illness. The environment outside ICU is also very pathetic. There are bed bugs everywhere. Everyone is coughing, sneezing. We could sense a huge infection spreading around outside ICU as well as inside ICU. Also many others faced similar health problems dues to chemo indicating that they do not perform proper assessment on the patients.
There has to be some audit performed on the ICU conditions, treatments, chemo related patient assessment, chemo medicines etc. to avoid such mishaps. Also the doctors feel offended if they are questioned about their treatment which in an incorrect attitude. So many doctors are new and it feels like the patients are their experiment and learning bodies. No one questions them if some treatment goes wrong or some mortality happens. Someone needs to put a proper check in place.