I was delighted when Portea started their home medical care services. My mother went thru a total knee replacement and we need a nurse at home to take care of her in terms of personal hygine needs. Specially with both my wife, I working and my father unable to take care of her. My mother wanted a hindi speaking person because she can speak oriya and hindi only.
First off - we got a woman who was from Bihar without any sense what nursing is about. Within a few hours, she started crying. I had to call Portea supervisor and have them speak with her. Finally after 2 days - I requested them to replace her. Which they did promptly. Another lady from near our home in whitefield showed up. She was reasonably good though without any knowledge of nursing.
The only thing she was capable of was to measure blood pressure using the traditional equipment. From Dec 5 thru till today -we managed with her. An hour back, I found her speaking with my mother in law in raised voice. I found out that she was being rude and was asking her not to ask the next change of nurse to work within the house.
The only work she did in the house was to provide food, medicines, wash her own utensils, etc. I called the Portea supervisor and asked them to provide me a replacement because i will not have anyone misbehaving with my family. Guess what the Portea supervisor responds - they do not have anyone else at this time, and I need to pay for the services till date.
They have already taken 1 week payment in advance and I owe them 2 weeks more which I will - but not sure if this is the right way to respond. So while the website is great and I have some good references - they are just not equipped to deal with this kind of service.
In fact, I can find an escalation email or process and hence posting here. Since I logged thru my Facebook - this ought to find its way out to my own contacts and alert them. Do we have any rights to enforce contracts? Or expect to see service levels? Anyway here goes... for those who care.,