Govt. General Hospital - My great experience

For "Hernia" surgery, my father was admitted in GH and he is back home after operation. It was a cocktail experience(cool and hot). Got up early in the morning by four and went to Govt. General Hospital, Chennai - 3, opposite to Chennai Central Railway station. There was about 40 people standing in queue near the Out Patient ward. I was 41st is my guess. Time was 5.30 hours at that moment. Was standing in the same place till they opened the counter and time was 7.15 hours at that moment. The queue moved and at 7.45 hours, I went near the counter. They asked for patient's name, age and type of disease/disorder., I told his name, age and hernia surgery. The person at the counter, wrote Room no. 10 in the admission slip AKA OP token. Queue 1 is over. Now queue 2. I took my father to room 10. Here started the second queue. My father might've been stood as 10th person. Went in to show the privately diagnosed scans and reports and a fitness certificate from a private doctor for surgery. Govt. doctors told that they will re-check and then only accept for surgery. So? behind the token, they wrote "apply ward." There are two buildings namely Tower block - 1 &  2. We went to tower block 1's general ward. From here I should thank Dr. K. Pradeepan, House surgeon for directing us from here. He made things easy and quick. Now, the wardens at the general ward gave us a sheet which was medically called case sheet. We went back to the OP ward and doctors there filled out the case sheet according to my father's health condition and at the back the token they added a word "paid" and the sentence went as "apply paid ward." Now we were directed to 5th floor of tower block 1 to pay money for the ward. We paid INR 600/day and we got Room 226A. I was told to give my father's blood in three rooms:-

• 104 - RFT
• 105 - CBC 
• 204 - Blood Group Test.

I gave and they told me to collect it by 16 hours in 104 & 105 and by 14 14:00 hours in 204. As I need to bring lunch for my mom and dad, I told my mom to collect from 204 by 14 hours. She collected. I came with lunch and by 16 16:00 hours, I went to 105 and there was a quite big queue and after the queue moved, I was near the counter after half hour. They said that, its already collected. Damn! I called my mom and she told that she collected in 105 instead of 204. :( Half hour waste. How ever in next 10 to 15 minutes, I was back to ward with the results collected. The doctors said that Operation cannot be performed today as he has to be certified for fitness. The day we went was day of operation. (i.e) They do operations in alternative days(Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) only except for casualty cases. So? The next day before I went to give breakfast from home, Father was taken into Anesthesia dept. for them to certify that he is eligible for a surgery. After some two and half hours, he came out with certification. He had breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. On this day, he was able to walk which I felt as better stage than previous day. Next day morning a set of doctors came and they saw the case sheet and told to get ready for operation. By 8 hours on 12/05/12 he was taken to operation theater(Of course, he walked and used lift :P) Went to 6th floor. He was in operation theater for some 2-3 hours. He got operated. Myself, Mom and Uncle Suresh alias Seshadri had lunch outside. My father was told to take nothing, not even water till 18 hours of that day. He suffered a lot and he was like a kid that day asking for a drop of water at least in a pleasing voice. That day night, he was told to take just "idiappam" with milk and sugar as side dish. He ate. That day went. And for the next three days he was there in hospital for observation by the time which he got well a bit. He was told to take rest for a month. He got discharged on 15/05/12. It was really a great experience that Whole medical charges costed around 8.5k INR where a private hosp. asked 50k INR just for operation. Where total medical cost may be 1Lakh. Ha ha ha. Now my father is so fine even though medical charges were just 8.5k.

Special Thanks to :-

• Dr. K. Pradeepan.
• Mr. & Mrs. Badri Narayanan.
• Mr. and Mrs. Ravikumar.
• Mr. Seshadri.
• Mr. & Mrs. Narayanan.
• Mr. Shanmugam.
• Mrs. Radha.