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Recently had our baby girl at the Columbia Asia, Yeshwantpur. The entire process has been a roller-coaster ride swinging between great joy & deep frustration.
Joy from the fact, among other things, that we had a very good doctor (Dr. Jyothi Shenoy) who helped in being practical yet stress free (relatively).
Frustration arising mostly from the support staff and the NICU in charge (Dr. Phani Bhushan).
Dr. Jyothi has been very professional and scientific through out. She would discuss some of her serious cases to give us more confidence and set us at ease and peace. We loved her all through the process. Only place where I think she could be a little more helpful is when she responds to questions and doubts over email. Sometimes her replies are very curt and not easy to follow. However, we do understand the limitations and constraints under which she’s replying to those emails. We are grateful for it.
Coming to the support staff – the nurses etc. Most of them have been thoroughly frustrating except few. The only ones we found professional and passionate about their job – Sisters Mary, Baby, Aparna, and one more sister whose name I’ll need to try and recollect. Apart from these four, every one else in the labor and maternity ward has been a huge pain in the keister.
I’ll elaborate:
- Getting the bottles, pallada, and feed for the baby is always a challenge. Unfortunately we had to depend on the nurses to get the things sterilized, prepare the feed, and give it to us! We normally inform them well ahead of time when we’ll need the feed. They will not get back to us until unless we have followed up with them at least 5-6 times. The entire process delays by about 1-2 hrs! Most of the nurses were just not interested in doing their job. We have had to go against our nature and yell at them to either just do their job earnestly or give the the access and protocol so we can do everything ourselves without having to rely on them!
- Same with medicines. We have to be after them to get the medicines for the mom and the baby. Multiple times. Every single time. It got so frustrating we just wanted to get the hell out of the place just so we have peace of mind to deal with everything on our own.
- Another point has been that of the cleanliness of the sterilizer. I think they have 2 or 3 electric steam sterilizers for sterilizing bottles and pallada. Couple of times I looked at it and it had scum all over! It had never been cleaned. Never been scrubbed. Never been rinsed. The sterilizer needed deep sterilizing!
- Lack of a breast feeding expert is an ominous shock! They keep insisting on formula feeding and hardly anyone advocates breast feeding. For all the money they charge, it’s insulting that they have no breast feeding experts to help new parents with and give proper instructions.
- Lack of proper facilities in the neonatal ICU (NICU). The mothers hardly have any room to change or relax for a while in between if they have to go visit their babies in the NICU. Another shocking omission where they should take extra precaution in providing better facilities for the new moms. These are the things that annoy you more and your mind begins thinking how these guys just want to squeeze more money out of patients without bothering to provide the right service and facilities. Now, this causes you to doubt their every motive. Ironically, even the noble ones.
- While we are in the NICU, no one suggested us the ROP test – retinopathy of prematurity. Supposedly these days they run these tests for most premature babies born before 32-weeks. Although we were at 36-weeks, we were suggested this test long after getting discharged from the hospital and during one of our routine visits. We later learned how these tests can be done even while at the NICU.
This over all forms our experience at the Columbia Asia, Yeshwantpur maternity and labor procedures.