Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A shocking Feed Back !!!

Quite recently, I had occasion to visit Vijaya Health Care Centre, Vadapalani twice. First to consult a gastro enterologist surgeon to elicit his expert opinion on likely bilateral herniaplasty for my wife and secondly after a month or so later to visit the emergency ward to admit my wife for AGE ( acute gastero enteritis) .

In both instances, the advices from the expert  gastroenterologist surgeon as well as the medical treatment and care given by the Hospital were indeed more than what I could describe SATISFACTORY .

Nevertheless, what was shocking indeed the auxillary support services on whom the hospital administration depends such as the reception and the sanitation aspects. 

I am not here even to speak on the lack of water supply at the toilet for one full day in a delux room for which they charge as much as Rs.2350 per day. My wife was admitted for vomitting and diarrohoea and even a pan was not provided at the bed side for which this old man as an attendant has to run hither and thither to catch the attention of an ayah to beg for a vessel .  That no nurse will come forward to help a patient while she is vomiting is another matter, for they feel, if i am not wrong,  the very purpose of the attendant is to take care of this aspect. 

But what is then shocking which I am revealing???

As an outpatient, one has to register and when I hardly filled up the form and handed over the same with the requisite fee of Rs.100/- I was asked to sign on a feed back form, on which I was asked to sign on the dotted lines in the bottom portion .  This feed back was about the attention visitors get at the reception counter, the provision of accommodation, hygeine conditions at the outpatient wards/ counters, the reception and the perhaps the quality of attention we get from the  doctor/consultant.
The feed back form provided columns from HIGHLY SATISFACTORY to NOT SATISFACTORY, if i recollect correctly, five levels.   As I hesitated to sign a blank form virtually allowing the person sitting on the other side to fill up as it suited them, I heard them saying that I need not sign it if I am not interested in signing a blank form.  I left the counter.

This had barely left my mind, as I had to enter the portals of the hospital within the next one month or so, to the emergency ward to admit my wife for AGE. She was monitored for full two hours at the emergency ward before being shifted to the regular ward.  She was there for full three days.  I may at the cost of repetition state that the quality of medical care and nursing was much much more than SATISFACTORY LEVELS.

What was appalling, however, that on the last day, when the patient was to be discharged, I was asked to sign again on A BLANK FEED BACK FORM. The official who brought the discharge summary and the feed back form said that there is not much to be said in the feed back form as they would fill it up . 
When I insisted that I cannot sign a blank form the official hesitatingly allowed me to fill up.  

What feed back it could be  when the customer is not allowed to fill up the various columns or not even allowed to read what is written on the feed back form .  Is not the top Management team aware of the ground level realities?  Or, if they are aware, ( I can honestly say that it does not appear that the ground level officials do not act on instructions from the top) or the management itself deceiving themselves !!

God only knows !!!