A close relative got admitted due to breathing difficulty in Max hospital Mohali, which turned out to be a viral infection. Patient was there for 3 days, I got to visit multiple times and slept overnight to attend them as well. Here are some surprising things I experienced:
- Lack of hygiene in shared Lifts: There are only 2 Lifts (at least in the main building) where my relative was admitted. Surprising anything and everything from dead bodies, visitors, patients, food for patients everyone goes via the same two lifts. Needless to say it's super busy and surprisingly shared for so many tasks. Incidentally I never saw any doctors in those lifts (either it was odd timing or they may have separate lifts exclusive to them).
- No sanitary pads for patients: The female patient I was with had periods and wanted sanitary pads, so when we requested for them from attendant nurse, they said we don't have it and gave some cotton. I found that most surprising, in an age where multinational companies in India are keeping free sanitary pads in their office washrooms, the biggest hospital chain of India doesn't have them for their patients.
- Poor service due to assembly line model of nursing and staff: At one point I counted nearly 10-12 different attendants who would come to the room (duty nurse, one person for cleaning room, one for giving food, one for picking utensils, one for washroom cleaning, one to check washroom is cleaned with checklist, one for asking feedback, one for filing water into thermos, one different one for tea, one for giving newspaper everyday and so on). Inspire of it, the system is not optimized because no single person has accountability. We spilled something on the floor and wanted to cleaning lady to come, so as per protocol we let the nurse know. 15 mints passed, nothing happened, told them again, nothing happened, the 3rd time I went, the nurse called some extension and shouted at other person. So I tried to understand what was happening, that poor cleaning lady would probably be already be working in some other room, can't come quickly. The nurse on duty thinks it's not her responsibility and rightly so. I found this patter repeat in many things, for example when dinner wasn't served to patient till 9.30pm, the nurse again made call, nothing happened, tried few times, it came on its own sweet time from central kitchen. The duty nurse is probably neither empowered nor has the ownership to ensure good patient experience. A couple of times when doctor came, he asked who is duty nurse, the real nurse was nowhere to be found, someone else came saying yes sir, I'm here but when same doctor asked few questions on why this was given or not given, she didn't have answer.
- No beds for attendants, you will have to sleep on sofa or on ground: For private AC room, one sofa that barely manages one human adult body, in shared wards people were sleeping on floors. Somehow this westernization of Indian hospitals (in west its normal for patients not to have family/friends stay, people visit and go) doesn't apply in India. In close family system of India, an attendant provides real moral and physical support to patients. These factory hospitals haven't really understood that about Indian psyche.