I am writing to bring an unfortunate incident to your senior management attention and seek their feedback. Hope they truly see this and deal with it in a humane way.
My Brother-In-law was diagnosed with Liver cancer and through a reference we met Dr. Shruthi Reddy. Upon checking the reports, she advised us to do biopsy and PET Scan and once those done it was mentioned to us that he is diagnosed with Bile Duct Cancer(Cholangiocarcinoma).
As a next natural step, we were sent for Chemo but looking at his Jaundice, Bilirubin levels the doctor advised we take treatment to bring this down.
We came back and met Dr. Shruthi Reddy, who in turn advised we get admitted and they will do two procedures.
1. Put pipe for removing the bile juices.
2. Put stent in the liver.
We admitted him in the hospital on 24th January 2024.
25th Jan, the first procedure was done, they took him to CATH LAB and the procedure lasted over 4 hours. He came out quite weak, but still in senses and was able to speak a bit, even walk a bit, also intake food in small quantities. Before the procedure there was massive lack of information. We were asked to keep patient in empty stomach and procedure was planned for 7 am but only taken to CATH Lab at 2 pm. Until then no one can tell us when he will be taken, whole day he was suffering with hunger.
On Monday, 29th Jan, he was taken back into the CATH Lab for putting the stent. The doctor had repeatedly told us it will be 20 minutes process, but it took over 3 hours, when we questioned, we were given some operational excuses. When he came out of the CATH Lab, his speech had gone, he couldn’t open his eyes, from that moment onwards hardly any food was going in. Last time he was in complete senses was before he went into the lab.
Next 24 hours doctors came and saw just twice and when we fed him any food he was vomiting, when we asked doctors, they shouted at us and asked us to be patient. Never gave any correct information, they always sent junior doctors who were extremely disrespectful and would only shout at us. I wanted to complain but worried about any adverse impact to patient we accepted all the abuse by the doctors, especially Dr.Shruthi hardly had anytime for us, we had to run behind her to ask questions and she would only give vague one word answers.
On 30th Jan, with in 20hours of surgery they discharged the patient, even when the patient was not able to open the eyes, no food was going inside, can’t sit without any support, struggling to breath. When we questioned, we were told he will be fine, take him home.
The way discharge was done was very clear they knew they had messed up and wanted to get us out ASAP.
4pm Doctor came and saw and advised discharge, within next 30mins we were discharged. The billing department had our bill ready; nurses were prepared to kick us out and everything happened so fast we were shocked. Normally it takes half a day for discharge. Our own experience few days ago when the biopsy was done took 5 hours for discharge, the way this was handled was quite fishy.
Once he came home his condition deteriorated further. On 1st February I called the doctor, we were told to prepare for eventuality, when we questioned if putting stent had hastened the process, she justified by saying this is the process, when asked why he was discharged in such a frail condition, no answers, we asked if we could bring him back, she rejected instead suggested we take him elsewhere or provide homecare. Basically, she just washed off her hands.
Thats when I had my doubt and contacted other doctors in India, Singapore, US, all unanimously said Stent shouldn’t have been put, he was in advance stage and any procedure would have only caused more inflammation.
Unfortunately for us exactly 6 days after they put Stent he passed away, so basically instead of 6montths a wrong procedure ensured he was dead in 6 days.
He became the experiment specimen for doctors.
Not only this, but she also caused financial damage to us. On the first visit when the patient and his wife were in distress, she had asked many questions, one of them was about Hepatitis B, which they only knew 3 months ago and he had accident 18years ago, so she somehow linked this and wrote in the report he had Hepatitis B since 18years.
If he knew since 18years, why wouldn’t he get treated? why wouldn’t other doctors pick this up?
When Insurance company questioned, she refused to accept and change it. This meant we had to pay the entire bill in Cash, the bill for their experiments and fast-tracking death is Rs.3.9lacs.
Normally for terminally ill patients the hospitals provide counselling, and they just don’t casually tell the patient, here nothing was provided, he was informed as though he has common cold or fever.
Overall horrible service and we went through irreplaceable loss.