An Open Letter to Apollo Hospitals Ahmedabad Administration

Hello Administration/Management Team,

Greetings!

I am Chintan Dave from Gandhinagar, Gujarat. I am 28 years old and I always trust the expert advise and medical guidance of doctors at Apollo from last 3+ years.

Today, with this medium of my blogroll; I would like to share my experience with Apollo Hospital Management, GIDC Estate, Bhat Gam, Gandhinagar.

It was the day of 8th March 2016, when I visited the OPD of Dr. Kashmira Zala, Pulmonology Dept. as I was feeling symptoms of sever respiratory infection and high fever. I visited the place at around 2:15 pm. From the help desk, I came to know that I need to go to the B wing of first floor and need to show up at Billing Desk for consulting charges. After approaching billing desk, and paying my consulting charges of Rs.1000/- I found my way to patient queue to see Dr. Zala.

When I found that only one patient is waiting before my turn to see the doctor, I was glad to be the second in queue as my body was not energetic enough to sit there for a longer time, as I was shivering in cold. I was told by the billing desk while making the payment that Doctor is on lunch break so it may take around 20-25 minutes for her to resume at desk and I was eagerly counting the time.

Almost 45 minutes passed and another 5 patients and their family members/companions joined us in the waiting queue. So we were total just 7 patients there. In a flash I could see Dr. Zala walking through the lobby towards her cabin with the keys. When she turned the keys and opened the door, with all our surprise, the last patient pushed the door and entered inside the cabin for consulting. I was bit disappointed with such behavior of that person but in a parallel way, it was funny as well – that how somebody can be so childish and act so mean at such places! The other patients were expecting the doctor to instruct the intruding patient to come by the sequence but it didn’t happened as there were no sequencing system in the waiting queue and it could be just a question of 10 additional minutes hardly, which was okay for all of us in the waiting line.

As soon as the patient came out of the cabin, another two patient tried to enter in the cabin without bothering about the sequence in the waiting queue. Now, it was a bit shocking for me that situation like this was on going in such hospitals. I searched for the help immediately to the front desk but I found that every single staff member from the front desk/billing desk was on lunch break from B wing of first floor and I was told that they will resume working after almost 1 to 1.5 hours by a ward staff passing by. When I came back on my seat, I found those two patient conflicting each other for their consulting turn were fussing and threatening with abusive words and shouting…!

With cough, cold and shivering, now I was having Head Ache too! I decided to sit on my place till the end of the fuss without participating in it, though it was my number to visit the doctor. I was not having such stamina to participate in that scenario and to fight…

I waited there for another 30-40 minutes and consulted the doctor at last, after witnessing 3 to 4 fights & fuss for their turn to see the doctor. Finally when I was done, I tried to contact front desk nearest to Dr. Zala’s chamber. A young man was resumed to his work after his lunch. With an intense to help in the improvement of process, I shared my experience with him along with the view that there should be a “Sequence System” or “Token System” for the patients who are waiting to see the doctor.

With all my surprise, he replied me, “Sir, I can not do anything in that.”. I said, “I can understand that, but can’t you pass-on the message to your higher authority, who can take the required actions to correct this?” with all of his disappointment, he responded me, “I don’t know – perhaps you should send and email to the management. Still I’m not sure if it can create any difference. It happens daily when we’re on lunch.”

After all hassles, it was completely unexpected from an “Administration Staff” but as I could see there was no back up staff for replacement during lunch breaks and arguments with staff members could never resolve such issues and lack of processes, I decided to dedicate this article to your team and due to my positive approach, I am always hopeful that such situations could be streamlined with proper process and there won’t be any stressful and trouble some environment while consulting a doctor at Apollo Hospitals.

But if strong actions are not taken immediately, I will always have one question in my mind that – “What is the difference between waiting queue process of ordinary Government Hospitals & Premium Care Hospitals like Apollo besides 20 times higher consulting charges of consulting ???”

Hope my experience would help you all to understand a mind set of the patient and the way they feel while seeing a doctor. I can understand that it’s not a child’s play to manage and handle such a big hospital but at minimal,  allocating a small coupon with a number on it is not a big deal. (Just like SBI Bank!!).

I am very thankful to you that you spared your time to read this entire experience of mine and if you’re Apollo Hospital Staff Member, I am delighted – Hoping for some actions soon!!

 

Have a great and healthy time!! 🙂

 

 

 

Note: Featured image credit & copy rights goes to Apollo Hospitals. No commercial purpose is associated with the use of it.

Be your best friend first

“Be your best friend first ?? What kind of caption is this? I am me… Simply me!! Ofcourse I am my best friend…” If you’re thinking something like this, I must suggest you to take a look at yourself again, because I did and found so many thing to correct, probably you find one at least!! In fact, I am writing this due to a great realization and awareness that I had last week. I found that so many natural qualities that I possess, so many hobbies I could have enjoyed are suppressed!! It’s not because I have a bad time or bad life, but surprisingly I found that whole society works like that. The system is made in the way to implement fix set of rules on you and your surroundings.

While observing a common lifestyle of everyone – doesn’t matter rich or poor, you can find one thing in common that after the student life, everybody is just busy with their professional activities with 90% of their time in a day. In this mock race of life, many little joyful moments and many skills or hobbies which are god gifted or say natural in one is suppressed all the time. I found some questions for you – answers of these questions can easily make you realize about the situation of your life. You can easily estimate if you’re being yourself as nature has made you or you’re just following social parameters for so called race of life!! Here we go:

 

Do you do what you love? :

If I say I do what I love and if I say I love what I do. There’s a huge difference in both the scenario. Unfortunately, most of us loving what they’re doing. I strongly believe that in life, sometimes due to circumstances or due to situations we have to accept some kind of work or job as compulsion but that compulsion should never be permanent. I think life is too short to judge according to society made parameters. One should always do what one loves, doesn’t matter what!! As Will says in “Pursuit of Happiness” – “If you’ve gotta dream, you’ve gotta protect it!!”

According to me, 70% people in this world are doing what they don’t want to do for their lifetime. If you’re among them, what different thing you’re doing with your life? I think at the end, there’s nothing but regret and guild for those who are not following their aspirations and accepting the compulsions of life. Just close your eyes and ask yourself with intense approach – “Do you do what you love?” The rest will be all…

 

Do you have worthy people surrounded? :

The another most time consuming and fake activity that we do in our life is to be with the people who actually doesn’t mean anything in our life. “Dah! what kind of joke is this? I have wonderful people with me!! I enjoy their company a lot…” Well, if that’s the case, you are one of the luckiest people in this world but take a serious and close look at your people relations chart. In most of the cases, we’re trying to impress the people which can benefit us professionally or socially – and that’s it!! Even the conversation between two are not pure now a days. Either they are cutting some third person in their talk or they’re wasting their time to discussing negative things or greedy ideas and so on…

Now, my question is very simple. Do you find people surrounded you who really love you (apart from family), who really boost you for being your most improved version, who motivate you in your downfall, who guide you through every thick & thins?? A matter of fact is – It’s hard to find friends, relatives and colleagues with this approach almost impossible. I strongly recommend you to find this kind of people in your life. These are real gems of your life. You can share the most precious time and trustworthy life  with a friend circle like this.

Don’t waste your time behind fake people just to complete your goals or materialistic requirements. In one sense it doesn’t sound practical – I know that. But if you’ll think seriously, you will find that on initial level you’ll be in trouble but once you’re through with this approach you will be more than happy in your life. Real Friendship, Real Love and Real Attachment can give a great satisfaction of life that no other materialistic achievement can give. Just think about it…

 

Do you have any hobby? Really? :

From my view point, hobby is a gift given by nature. Everybody has at least one hobby with so intense attachment – where that activity makes that person to forget every hard nukes of the life. After your professional activity, hobby is the only platform where you can have a feeling of creativity of your own. And you feel it more fascinating because that creativity was purely by your will and choice.

Find out what makes you feel refreshed and blissful? What activity or hobby suits your nature? Once you do that, just go for it. Meet more people sharing the same hobby with you and actually you’ll start finding good people surrounded you. Some people believe, following hobbies means spending more and more unproductive time in your life and I strongly feel that spending time behind your favorite activity means improving your productivity by refreshing your mental ability. So what’s your hobby? Find one…

 

Are you being so logical? :

Do you remember, when you were of 5-6 and when you see a butterfly in garden or backyard – you used to run behind it with lots of enthusiasm and smile. When you were small, watching full moon was a fascinating site for you. You used to enjoy so many little things. What happens today when you see the butterfly? Either you don’t give attention to it or may be you don’t even notice it. Today you don’t even care if it’s full moon or not. I am not saying that even at this age, you should run behind butterfly and catch them from your neighbor’s backyard, but the point is, exposure to excessive knowledge makes us ignore small moments of joy. We actually stop seeing beauty of nature or little time of happiness. Why? Because we have this habit of examine everything with the magnified glass of “Logic”. We know how earth rotates in the space but we don’t know how to live joyful and sensible life on earth. That’s the problem!!

Don’t be excessively logical in everything. It’s okay to enjoy some moment of life as it is, without any logic behind it. Even try to accept people as they are!! Don’t try to evaluate with your measure tape of parameters. Knowledge should be just a tool for your well-being, it should not throw you out of basic human nature of Love, Compassion, Attachment and Happiness in life. So just use your knowledge as and when required and rest of the time, just enjoy your surrounding as it is. Ask yourself – “Are you being excessive Logical all the time??”

 

With a great hope that these thoughts will help you at least 1% in changing the way you think in life towards the affirmative way, I would like to close this article.

Have a Great Time 🙂