I was consulting Dr. Shashikala Hande in Cradle for my pregnancy from the 3rd month. I had to get admitted to Cradle in the 7th month. I went in at 5AM as an emergency as I had gas pain which was not very severe but was not subsiding even after 24 hrs. The staff at Cradle did not care to start any treatment until Shashikala came at her own time of 10AM. She hadn’t even asked the nurses to start the IV despite knowing that I hadn’t eaten anything the previous day. BP/Sugar cannot be excuses because I had none. During the scan, the radiologist found that the amniotic fluid(water) was extremely low. In the meanwhile, I had been given Rantac injections and my gas pain was down to nil within a couple of hours.Shashikala finally came to my room 2 hrs after the scan. She noticed that I had a slight cold. I told her it was very mild. I wanted to talk about the low water level but she kept putting it off every time by talking about my cold and gas which were hardly an issue at that time.She kept avoiding it;her constant answer was ‘I’ll tell you”. Sometime later, the nurse came in with tubes and all kinds of instruments and said that they were going to insert pipes thru my nose to sck the gas out of my tummy. I told her that I don’t have any more gas pain. But she kept insisting, even the doctor in charge came and was forcing us for it. But I and my husband were adamant on not accepting this because we felt it was risky & needless. We guessed this is nothing but a money making tactic. She even got Shashikala to scold us on the phone for not doing this.Sometime later, the nurse came in again, this time with a steamer for me to inhale steam for my cold.We realised this was another money making scheme but decided to go ahead because it was harmless and we did not want keep saying no to them.In the evening, Shashikala brought with her a young, inexperienced 30-something general surgeon so that he could examine me to see whether I still had any gas problem. Another money making scheme. In fact, she knew very well that I had no gas problem left at all; I had had breakfast & a heavy lunch that day and I was feeling perfectly fine. All through that day, she never even once talked about the actual problem and what effect that would have on the baby. She kept avoiding the topic until she was going to discharge me the next day. And all she said was that I should continue the same medicines and drink lots of water. I even asked her what’s going to be the effect on the baby of this but she just ignored my question and walked out. She told me to come back for a scan after 2 full weeks. She gave an impression that there is nothing wrong with the baby and she had done whatever needs to be done and that we can go home and relax for 2 weeks.But little did I know that those 2 weeks were going to slowly lead up to the death of my baby.10 days later, the baby’s movements suddenly stopped and we went back to Cradle only to find out that the baby was dead inside.Shashikala treated my case so carelessly that she did not even give a hint that something was wrong or could be wrong. For 10 days, I sat at home believing my doctor and thinking that everything was fine and that nothing needed to be done. But it turned out to be the opposite. I consulted 3 doctors later on and all of them said the same thing-"When the water is less, the first thing to do is a Doppler study and monitor the baby daily and keep the mother admitted until the water level is sufficient; And if it is not, take the next decisions whether to take the baby out if there is a risk to it in a womb with less water where it is prone to infections".
This was the 26th wk but Shashikala didn’t want to do a Doppler study even in the 22nd wk, I had been asking her about it from the 18th wk, she kept saying “not now, I’ll tell you later”. This seemed to be her standard answer to all our queries.Some people like Shashikala would say that everything cannot be predicted and that this could have happened for any reason but to us this is still a huge negligence from her. Not taking steps to save the baby, not showing any seriousness and discharging the patient without doing a repeat scan, just sending them home as if there is no problem is not what a responsible doctor would do.Cradle and Shashikala showed their inhumanity & arrogance even after my baby was dead.I was sitting outside sobbing uncontrollably on the stairs and waiting for Shashikala to call us but she did that only after she finished attending to all her other patients.She gave the excuse that they could not find me in the lounge. I think looking at me crying like that, each and every person who was present in Cradle that day knew about me, so I don’t see how a nurse from the hospital was unable to find me.She then did the usual talk which we were expecting, gave me a tablet to have and told me “Go home and come back after 2 days”.My husband argued that shouldn’t I be immediately admitted and labour induced.She said it will take atleast 48 hrs and that I should just wait. But the fact is that I delivered after just 20 hrs from that time. She had even said that maybe I won’t be able to go into labour and they would wait another 5 days (after the 48 hours) and then go for Caesarean!!On my brother’s advice, we went to CMH from there and the doctor in emergency there advised me to get admitted immediately.They induced labour that night and I delivered at around 1PM the next day. I know what it is like to be in a labour room all night listening to newly born babies’ cries from the delivery room next door and know that I too am going to have a delivery soon but there won’t be any cries coming out.
A few weeks later, we went back to Cradle to meet Dr. Kishore and tell him about all this and how badly Shashikala handled our case. But not to our surprise, he did not support us in anyway.He just blindly spoke in her favor that she had done whatever she could do. When we asked him we wanted to know exactly what had she done to save the baby, he started rambling the same things again – how she treated the gas and cold and found a lousy general surgeon to examine me. She had managed to get the bill to a massive Rs.20K for just a one night stay in the hospital by giving me unnecessary medicines and doing unnecessary procedures on me when she should have been concentrating on the baby.
Dr. Kishore even said that he had asked Shashikala to get feedback from her patients after we reported her to him. And not so surprisingly, she got 8-9 feedbacks which praised her.We told Dr. Kishore that this is obvious because out of maybe 10 cases, 9 are normal pregnancies and 1 might be a complication. It is after all how you handle that 1 complicated case that makes you a good doctor, not the other 9 where all you have to do is deliver the baby like a midwife.There were many other small incidents that happened in Cradle which I could have taken as indicators to tell me that I’m in the wrong place.But circumstances made me overlook these and fate did what it was meant to do.I am not advising people against going to Cradle, you can go there if you have a normal pregnancy and want to deliver in a five star hotel. But if there is a problem, then don’t go there.And if you do, pls certainly do NOT go to Dr. Shashikala.I did that and what I got was a beautiful but dead baby boy who looked perfectly healthy otherwise according to doctors along with his post mortem report which said nothing is wrong with him.