Posted On: Tue Sep 29, 2009 9:44 am
Title of Post: “Medical getting costlier?”
Naga posted at Zoho-Intranet, he wrote
“One of my relatives in his mid sixties met with a road accident on 15th of September 2009. On the fateful day, while on his way to medical shop to purchase his daily course of medicines, a couple of guys performing street racing on their bikes lost control to hit him.
In the impact, my relative right arm was broken with heavy bleeding & he lost his consciousness. Thanks to few bystanders, who shifted him to Royapettah Government Hospital, which was just couple of kms away from the accident spot.
It was decided to perform the operation in GH itself as someone in the discussion group claimed to be best friend of the emergency ward in-charge (Dr) & certified for his quality job. Even after couple of days, there were no signs of any proceedings on treatments. Hence he was moved to a private hospital on 17th of September 2009 at Tambaram (Sudhan Ortho clinic). After all the preliminary tests, Dr.Sudhan Chirstudas claimed that to be a very minor fracture & fixed the operation date as 19th September 2009.
Next day, my relative (Patient) was only in semi conscious state for the entire day. This was escalated many times during the course of the day & the duty doctor claimed everything to be normal. Not convinced with his reply, we decided to escalate the same. Luckily we got the mobile number of Dr.Sudhan Chirstudas and escalated the situation, only to be told to hand over the phone to the duty doctor . Based on our insistence, he came down to the ward to verify the patient.
In next few minutes, he gave us the shock saying that the patient condition has become worse & advised us to shift it to somewhere else. They said that pulse rate was far below & has to be treated in an ICU. Iam not sure, what would have happened, if the escalation has not happened Dr.Sudhar Chirstudas. Based on his recommendation we shifted the patient to SrI Ramachandran Hospital at Porur. The final bill at Sudhan Clinic came to Rs.13k. .
Straight to Ramachandra Emergency ward, we were asked to take lots of tests once again. These tests alone made us poorer by another Rs18,000 in first 2 hrs. At the end of all these tests, a senior doctor verifies all the reports, examines the patient and asks the duty doctor to shift it to ward.
After sometime the duty doctor receives a call & informs us that patient needs to shift to ICU, which costs Rs.18,000 per day. We had no other choice other than accepting to their proposal. After two days at ICU, we were told that patient has to be there at ICU for additional 3–4 days. After explaining the difficulties in sourcing the money through a common person, they agreed to continue the treatment in a ward. Ward charges came as a big relief to us @Rs.2500 per day in comparison to ICU charges Rs.18,000 per day.
They said that operation will be performed on 23rd September after stabilizing the patient. Visibly the patient seems to be okay, but they claimed he is suffering from pneumonia & has to be handled with care as the patient has suffered heart attack earlier (before a decade). On 22nd September 2009, we were told that operation dates were postponed to 29th September 2009 as still the patient is yet to recover. Last night we were told that there is a pus formation on the wound & the operation dates were postponed to 3rd October 2009. When questioned on the logic of fixing it on Saturday (3/10/2009), they said that Operation theatre is only free on that date.
Till date they have charged Rs.1.3 lakhs (including first day tests) averaging to Rs.13,000 per day. We thought it would be Rs.3k-4k per day all inclusive, but this amount came as a shocker.
When asked on estimate of further charges.. they detailed
Operation Charges: Rs.60,000/- (X-Ray reports says it’s a minor fracture)
Post operation at ICU charges (2 days)-Rs.36,000/- (they say it’s mandatory to be in ICU for 2 days post operation)
Other misc charges — ?????????????
Also Ward Charges for 4 days till 2/10/2009 needs to be added which will costs additional Rs.50,000/-approximately (going by the current rates of Rs.13K /day)
Treatments are getting costlier every day
Edit: I missed the 7 days at ward post operation after ICU, which might end up in additional Rs.91,000 (same workout of Rs.13k per day)
