My wife was having very high fever 103~104 with severe chills and was admitted to Hiranandani Hospital, Powai, Mumbai on 06/03/2018 because even after 7 days of antibiotic being administered intra-venous the condition didn’t improve. Various tests were being done to diagnose the ailment and suspecting either a infection or a auto-immune disorder or both. Then on 08/03/2018 it was suggested by the physician Dr Neeraj Tulara to empirically give choloroquine tablet to see if the fever subsides. At that time the Rheumatologist Dr Raheesh Ravindran also suggested to give a short dose of steroid parallely to see if the fever subsides. When asked to Dr Raheesh that if the fever subsides how do we know due to which drug (cholorquine or steroid) the fever has subsided, he said that if it is malaria the fever won’t come and we continue with choloroquine and if it still comes then it is auto-immune disorder and we continue steroids. We said, that since last 10 days the situation is not corrected so let it be one more day and we won’t like to give the steroid and watch how she responds to choloquine.

On 09/03/2018 the fever didn’t recur after choloroquine. However the auto-immune remained a strong suspicion. Further, in order to rule out any other infection so that for auto-immune the treatment can be started, it was then suggested by the physician Dr Neeraj Tulara after consulting with the Hematologist Dr Ashish Bakhshi to send her for a PET SCAN to some other hospital or diagnostic centre where that facility is available on 10/03/2018. It was then agreed by both that if the fever comes then PET SCAN will be done on 10/03/2018 and if not then she will be discharged after 24 hours of observation and the PET SCAN can be done later as a OPD patient.

on 10/03/2018, the fever didn’t recur and hence no PET SCAN was done. That morning Dr Raheesh Ravinderan came and asked “Why PET SCAN is not done?” He was told of the above facts and he said that, “ït must be done since the hematologist suspects lymphoma”. The Rheumatologist is speaking directly to the patient of some suspicion of the Hematologist not his own. And further said that “once you get discharged then you would be out of our control and wont get the PET SCAN done”. Are we supposed to be controlled by the doctors. Is it a hospital or a jail? We told the physician that Dr Raheesh is not supposed to enter our room again and we won’t take any treatment from him. Such mental harassment to the patient directly by scaring her in the name of a deadly disease like lymphoma on a suspicion and that too which is not of his own subject “Rheumatology” but of other doctor’s stream of “Hematology”. Some ulterior motive can’t be ignored at the cost of mental harassment to the patient! Is it about care or commercial motive, anybody can decipher.

Later the same day the Hematologist comes, examines the patient and says that all is OK PET SCAN is not required to be done at all. That time we asked the hematologist Dr Ashish Bakshi that is the Rheumatologist Dr Raheesh Ravindran his spokesperson that he comes and scars the patient.

To add to all this, Dr Raheesh Ravindran is not even the full-time Rheumatologist at the hospital, he is a visiting Rheumatologist who visits every alternate day, even when the hospital has a full-time, well experienced Rheumatologist in Dr Shalini Suralkar! This further suggests that instead of care its reasons beyond medical ethics which are motivating the Doctors for not referring to in-house specialists.

Finally she was discharged on 11/03/2018.

Such an horrendous experience, would never recommend this hospital to anybody.