A passage to death: MEDICA Superspeciality Hospital, Kolkata, W.B.

Medica Superspeciality Hospital, located at 127 Mukundapur, E.M, Bypass, Kolkata, W.B., claims to be "caring for life," as their tagline displays, but unfortunately they are making "a killing under the garb of treatment." We personally witnessed a horrifying experience and sacrificed our beloved sister due to the negligence of the medical staff.  Few months ago, we had lost our aunt (bua/pisi) for the same reason in the same hospital.    

The doctors in the hospital are possibly working under some targets to achieve, and in that process they make the patients and their family members helpless to take critical decisions in the pretext of urgency or patient's life—without considering the fact whether the patient is fit enough to go for operation or not. Be it surgery or patient health or some other admission-related formalities, they habitually give inconsistent updates to the patient’s family (at one point they will say recovery is on the right track, and after certain period they will give you a completely different picture). Classic example is Dr. P.S. Shetty of Gastroenterology and a few surgeons—who are pathetic and do not deserve to be medical practitioners, not only because of their dealing with patient's family but also their carelessness. When there is no empathy, how can a hospital with such staff claim "caring for life"?

There appears a complete chaos and lack of coordination in the hospital administration. The dieticians are underqualified and lack common sense; without knowing the allergy level or seriousness of the patient, they give food that aggravates the patient's existing medical condition.  The post-op care is frightening. Can you imagine people entering CCU/ICU/HDU with their shoes on, nurses not using any precautionary hygiene—not even wearing medical gloves even at the time of the pandemic? Most of the nurses and para-medical staff in CCU/ICU are amateur and unskilled. Their handling of surgical equipment shows their lack of knowledge and training.

More than skilled doctors, they are cold-blooded businessmen. Always look for money without considering the humanitarian ground, and purposefully card swipe machines were kept on hold/non-function mode so that they can collect cash. How come in the era of digital world card machines do not function? If you do not clear the dues, you won’t even get the dead body. Such hospitals have failed to provide basic healthcare facilities, forget about their superspeciality tag.

We cannot ask for our beloved sister's life to return to us, but to minimize the exploitation of patients by private hospitals, the state and the Union Government need to take certain measures immediately.

•  A periodic audit by high-power regulatory body should be conducted for these private hospitals to keep a check on them. Proven guilty more than once should lead to  cancellation of licence of such hospitals.
• There should be government-approved impanelled specialist doctors/surgeons who can be approached by the patient's family for medical guidance or second opinion. This will help to curb malpractices in health care system.  
• Alternatively, the government should think for bringing a law into place whereby other than life-threatening diseases or fatal accident cases, if a patient dies due to hospital's negligence, the hospital should be penalized 75% of the money they charged to the patient's family. The penalized should be utilized for CSR activity by the government.  

In this way, we can set an example so that no one can do this type of unethical work. The government must act to restore people’s faith.