I was planning on writting this review a bit earlier but my duties as a new mom do not let me the time to do so. I’m a foreigner, been living in India for 6 years, am married to an Indian and in July 2009 we were expecting our first child, now you can imagine I was a bit anxious of the health system in Bangalore.
And spent many hours reading all I could about hospitals. And what I read here on mouthshut wasn’t very encouraging.
But my experience with Manipal hospital has been nothing but exellent, I will not dwell on cost issues and whatnot, all corporate hospitals in the city practice the same prices for a delivery give or take a few thousands bucks. During my antenatal period I had to go for a scan at wockhart and this scared me of even thinking of going there to give birth.
Despite the fancy dead posh marbles, pictures and cute flowers. But when I stepped into manipal hospital for my antenatal classes I was very impressed by the courtesy of the staff, prompt service, and treated like a person, not a walking wallet possibly stuffed to the rim with US dollars or something.
On July 5th I started having contraction in the morning, but my Dr told me that until they were 7-10 minutes appart there was no need to go there, it was a Sunday, whcih I spent at home, and by 6.30pm we drove to Manipal Hospital, we already knew were the maternity was, but upon seeing me pregnant with a bag, the security lady at the entrance told me it was on the second floor, and once reaching the lift area, I even got to go first in one of the staff elevator, a nice gesture from the security personnel to recognize the fact I was in labor. In the maternity section I wasn handled very well, upon arrival I was immediately shown into my labor room while hubby took care of all the admission formalities.
Then the OB who was on service proceeded to check me up, my own OB was at home and sick and not sure if she would make it but apparently kept in touch on the phone the whole time. the first monitoring session went smoothly, it’s even been established that labor was not yet in active phase but that if I wished I could stay there as things could or go fast or take a while. I opted for staying because at this point I was tensed anyway. The labour room was small, windowless, but clean and I had my own bathroom. I remember the only thing that I found odd was that the bedsheets despite being starched and clearly clean had a yellowish shade to them, clearly they weren’t brand new...but later I got to understand why that was so.
Soon after my monitoring was done, a nurse came in with a tray of food, I was surprised because I was under the impression pregnant ladies in labor were on a liquid diet, the meal was simple and small, clearly just a "snack" by Indian standard, but still I full meal by my European Standards. It’s at this time that labor chose to be more intense, and by 9.30pm the Dr told me I was then officially in active labor and offered me the choice of pain relief, I opted for analgesic not wanting an epidural, then a nurse came to administer the injection and IV and after a while even stayed with hubby and I as I was starting to really feel breathless and exhausted. Things went fast, and at 12.30am my daughter was born, with the assistance of a dedicated staff of doctors and nurse who were all cheering me up and encouraging me.
We were then taken back to my labor room where I noticed clean white bedsheets and understood they keep the old ones for labor as it is bound to get messy. My daughter was brought to me immediately after she was cleaned up and the nurse immediately taught me how to breast feed...bear in mind that it was way past midnight and that I got admitted on a Sunday. We were also told to wait a little as the wardroom wasn’t completely ready, so I go to spend what was left of the night in the labor room, the staff continued being friendly and professional, I fainted in the bathroom and then needed assistance whcih was again professional and each time I needed the bathroom during the night, it wasn’t 2 minutes wait before someone came in to help me out of bed.
Our insurance package covered the lowest category of private rooms which are located on the 6th floor and that’s were we were headed at 7am. The rooms are big, a bit old looking, but clean and I spent 3 days there. Soon after being checked in I was brought breakfast whcih that morning were 3 monster size Idlis, but later in the morning the dietetician came in to ask about my diet preferences saying that they sent an Idli breakfast my way as South Indian is the default diet, I told her I was fine with the South Indian diet and that is what I got for lunch and dinner, the protion were huge and I suspect they took into account the fact I was a new mom, not only the protions where good, the meal was balanced and tasty. During my whole stay the doctors came to check me in the morning, the dietetician as well and the nurses all came at the beging of their shift to check how I was doing and were always there to answer my questions and help me. Even the food delivery guy and tea delivery guy were professional and knocked before coming in.
The only con with my room was that it was old and the bathroom was a bit dull, and had no shower head, just the good old bucket and mug system that you find all over India, I would have prefered a less tedious way of bathing, but it wasn’t so horrible.
The other thing that could be better in Manipal hospital is the parking, more often than not one need to park very far behind and walk all the way back to the main entrance, valet parking is operational only from 8am to 8pm. But all in all, my experience was exellent, much more than what I got to experience in Switzerland in a private hospital for a knee surgery as far as staff friendliness and professionnalism is concerned.