I am writing to inform you about the sad state of affairs at the Max Balaji Hospitial in IP Extension (East Delhi). We had to
get one of my relatives operated for a medical condition. We were asked by the doctor who was consulting her to be at the
hospital by 7:30 pm to get her admitted into the ward as the operation was scheduled for the next day morning around 8:00 am.
As advised by the doctor we reached the hospital on time where we were asked to get in touch with the reception to get the
admission formalities completed. Upon reaching the reception we were told that there were no rooms available for atleast 3
hours and that too was dependent on one of the patients being discharged. This was a very unpleasant surprise as the
operation had been planned 2 weeks in advance along with the ward room request. The doctors could offer no more help other
than telling us to wait near the reception and hope that we get the ward quickly. It was also suggested that we keep
reminding the Reception to process our request lest they should forget.
At the reception we were asked to start the admission formalities while we were waiting for one of the rooms to be vacated.
What surprised me the most was that the Billing / Registration Department was very quick in charging the entire expected
amount of the expenses without even bothering to check whether a room was available for the patient to get admitted. When we
asked them to inform us as soon as the room would be vacated we were told that this information will not be available to them
and it is best that we go to the ward itself and find out from the nurse when the room would be vacated. It took repeated
visits to the ward to determine that the room alloted to us had been finally vacated by the previous patient. When we
informed the Registration Department around 10:15 pm that the room had been vacated we were told that it will take about half
an hour to clean the room.
We patiently waited near the Reception area till the room was cleaned. After waiting for an hour when we asked the
Registration officer whether we could shift the patient we were told to check the room to determine whether it had been
cleaned. When we went to the ward we were appalled to find that nothing had been done after the previous patient had left. We
got hold of the cleaner and paid him some money and got the room cleaned in our presence.By the time we shifted the patient
it was around 12:00 am only to find that the attached bathroom had still not been cleaned. It was around 1:00 am that the
room was finally in some state of decency for occupation.
Throughout our ordeal we were offered little assistance from any of the hospital staff. We were told that each department has
its own incharge and its difficult to coordinate between the departments. Also there was no duty manager available to whom we
could voice our grievance.
The irony of the entire episode is that each wall had a caption in bold stating "The patient comes first... Always". The
only way I would complete the statement is "The patient comes first and the services come last. Always".
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