I had an unexpectedly bad experience during my delivery at Cloud Nine, OAR. I’ve tried here to give an objective account of my experience during and after. I came from out of town to deliver our second child at Cloud Nine, Old Airport Road. We chose it based on the great experience we had at The Cradle, Gurgaon, where my first son was born 3 years ago. I was admitted on the 8th of May for a planned c-section.
From the outset, the nursing staff showed themselves to be untrained and unprofessional. They messed up putting in my IV 3 times, the last time the needle having missed the vein with my forearm swelling up like a balloon. IV was finally restarted at the OT by the anesthesiologist.
Catheter placement was done in my room before I went into the OT, and once again was messed up by the nurses and had to be done a second time. Now, I’ve undergone several procedures before, both in India and the US. In all of these, including my first delivery, and in everyone else I know, the catheter has always been placed after anesthesia. For me, this was the most excruciating part of the prep. Four nurses holding me down to put in one catheter. Twice.
By the time I got to the OT I was so freaked out, that I had a near panic attack during the delivery.
Next I was put in the recovery room at around 2pm. For the entire time nurses in the nurses’ station just outside, talked and laughed loudly among themselves incessantly even after I requested the nurse to keep it down. At around 6pm, the nurse insisted that I be taken back to my room, which they did, in a wheelchair, in which I had to get up off the bed and climb in and out of, after only 4 hours post surgery. At the time, I still couldn’t feel my legs. She insisted that hospital policy was early ambulation and that I should be moving after 6 hrs of the surgery. It had barely been 4.
Back in my room, once the IV line was removed, the nurses seemed to be lost when it came to medicines which were not administered on time. I had to ask for medicines myself, and the day I was being discharged it came out that the antibiotics that I was taking twice was actually supposed to be taken 3 times a day.
And finally the kicker: I developed a urine infection post delivery and for almost 3 weeks I was prescribed the wrong antibiotic by the doctors even though lab reports that came early on showed that the infection was resistant to that antibiotic. I happened to look at the report myself on an impulse and found the error.
The doctor who delivered my baby, one of the senior doctors there, was not available for consultation or comment for the entire 3 weeks. In fact not until we complained directly to her (by SMS), that we were disappointed with the service at Cloud Nine, did we get past the receptionists and the army of nurses standing guard, and get an audience with her.
At least the senior doctor had the grace to admit that what happened to me should not have happened and that she had “blasted” the nurses and had a talk with all the other doctors. Unfortunately that didn’t help me much. She prescribed yet another antibiotic, and after 4 weeks post delivery I finally started feeling better.
My objective is not to badmouth the hospital and staff. We go to these high end birthing centers expecting a high quality of care at all levels. I spent close to a total of 1 lakh here, and I felt like I was treated poorly, by any standard. I realize that the place is new but some of the lapses were inexcusable. I hope this experience helps in correcting some of the procedures at the hospital so that no one else has to go through what I went through.