My mother suffered an intertrochanteric fracture ( right hip) at home and was admitted under Dr.Tanmoy Karmakar at AMRI Saltlate based on his google review.
We have lived outside West Bengal for almost a decade and based on our satisfactory experience with regard to medical care outside Kolkata, we trusted him with my mother’s well-being. He unilaterally decided to conduct a hip replacement surgery without even bothering to inform us or briefing us about the pros and cons of such a complicated surgery for an elderly patient. As per the pre-surgery test records, all her parameters were normal. We were only told about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism while signing the undertaking as my mother was being taken to the OT. We admitted her under Dr. Karmakar primarily for a proper diagnosis and recommendation on the right course of treatment and not to be placed on a butcher’s table as bait for fulfilling the OT quota. Dr.Karmakar’s interpersonal skills camouflage his overconfidence in his knowledge and expertise due to which I lost my mother. It is basic ethical practice to brief the patient party about the pros and cons of the surgery so that informed choice can be made whether to opt for the surgery or not. It cannot be decided when the patient is entering the OT.
My mother was put on ventilator support straight from the OT post-cardiac arrest and shifted to ICU. We watched helplessly as the case was craftily taken out of our control. We were at our wits’ end to understand how a non-cardiac patient reached such a critical stage in the OT itself. After 13 days of turmoil unleashed by his ICU team, subjecting her to excruciating pain, she eventually died on 12th July 2021 as a result of aspiration pneumonia, septicemia, second cardiac arrest, and multi-organ failure. Post her demise, we discovered that she was having right branch blockage of the heart which was recorded in her pre-surgery Eco cardiogram report. Neither Dr.Karmakar nor the hospital bothered to disclose this pertinent point which multiplied her risk of a cardiac arrest during surgery.
I definitely do not expect any doctor to act like God, but Dr. Karmakar needs to introspect and keep the patient’s family in the loop before the damage is done so that the patient as well as her family gets a fair chance. On social media, he should share his failure stories along with his success stories as well. I would not recommend him based on my experience of the irreversible loss of my mother.