I had only good impressions and praises for this hospital and their state-of-the-art facilities, their caring nurses and the expert doctors here, until I took my dad to this hospital about a month back for a neurological problem suspected to be starting of Dementia.
Earlier I had my cousin treated here(palliative care for cancer). People from AIMS used to come to her house every week and they even visited after she passed away to meet us relatives. It was a very touching gesture from AIMS. Then there was my other relative who needed a pacemaker initially and needed a spinal surgery after an accident. The treatment was excellent and he still has a lot of personal friends at the hospital.
My family was in Bangalore, and my dad started having problems like low blood sodium and in 3 months it was a full blown memory loss suspected to be encephalitis caused by some infection. Main visible problems are continuous episodes of seizures and severe memory loss which recovers after couple of days. He was treated in one of the best hospitals in bangalore, I will write another review for them in detail.
I had to go to Kerala for some family function and I didn’t think much or ask around when I decided to take my dad to AIMS, when he had another episode of seizures. From our experiences earlier, they were the best available and the fact that it will be a panel of doctors didn’t worry us much as we had seen it working for my relative and he was all praises for the neurology department and started me and my dad’s 3 day ordeal which we will never forget.
They dont allow anyone to stay with the patient on the pretext that it will hinder them in giving the best treatment. So, my dad was taken in at the emergency room and we were shooed away. It was at 11AM and the neurologist never came until 5:30PM, and to my horror, he denied to treat my dad as a neurology patient as I didnot have a reference letter from bangalore. Having the detailed discharge summary and putting the AIMS neurologist on phone to the doctor in bangalore were apparently not enough, they needed a letter addressed to AIMS! After some raised voices and complaints the doctor finally agreed to admit my dad as a neurology patient - which I regretted later. Finally at around 8:30PM, my dad was shifted to an EEG room and I was allowed inside and my dad was literally soaked in his own urine from waist down, he was still wearing the clothes he had in the morning - so much for the nursing care. It took half an hour and lots of shouts to get it changed.
Next day I had to repeat the whole medical history of my dad to at least 7 diffrent junior doctors till the most awaited visit of senior neurologist and she took just 5 seconds to decide that an MRI done 3 days earlier was not good and needed another MRI scan - priced at 7000 a piece. Being a non-medical professional, I had to agree. and took may dad for MRI - at this time my dad was not even recognizing me, and I was told by the people manning MRI that I need to tell my dad to stay still inside the MRI macine or they can’t take the MRI - more shouts and complaints, and they decided to sedate him. And asked me to be inside the MRI room. Midway through the scan sequence, my dad woke up and they had to stop the scan. And the technician simply said the scan was not complete and I just have to repeat it - paying another 7000. Two days after my dad was admitted, no real doctor came to see him, no test results were available, all they said to us was that only 1 person can stay with the patient. They are very strict on these rules for the patient. My dad’s state was worsening and I had no doctor to talk to, nor any one responsible in the hospital was responding to my queries - nor the nurse, nurse team lead, assistant to neurologist and not even the bloody PRO.
And on the next day this so called senior neurologist was asking for us to do a whole body PET scan again, which was done a month earlier. It costs Rs.20000+ for this scan. I didn’t want my dad to undergo any of this torture anymore.
We asked for a discharge from this horrible place on day 3 and went to a smaller hospital named Little Flower Hospital, angamaly. There are two excellent neurologists there, who took care of my dad and what more, they are approachable and even available on phone(through hospital) for emergencies.
I didn’t want to write this review, what if some one good in AIMS see this and things improve there? From their treatment to me and my dad I wish them hell!, but then there are a lot of hapless people reaching that place for medical care, I don’t want them to suffer anyway.
Though I am not a believer of Mata Amritanandamayi on whose name this hospital is built, I am pained to see that such a name is maligned by the crooks at this place.
This hospital is not an option for me anymore, they just made a very good world class hospital to third class, with all the beurocratic delays and greed. So Sad.