St. Martha's Hospital Gate 2 - Hospital in Bengaluru - Bengaluru Urban, India

Stay away from the Medical ICU at St. Martha's if you can afford to, because 1. the ICU is at present minimally staffed, 2. certain doctors are highly abusive 3. the trainees at the ICU (who seem often to be solely in charge of it) appear not fully trained or very knowledgeable, and 4. its senior doctors might not be the best in the trade. The most troubling thing about it is that two of the seniormost doctors there (Dr. Rahil and Dr. Ramkumar) can be verbally abusive and vengeful (with the full knowledge and acquiescence of their HOD Dr. Praveen Kumar). They create an unsafe and very distressing environment for their very vulnerable patients by resorting to rage, bullying and browbeating towards the helpless patients themselves and their relatives as well. We saw Dr. Rahil in particular vent his anger upon a patient - he may have caused an injury (a broad cut on the patient's nose) while rashly directing the application of an old ventilator mask - and taunting the patient while she was fading away. The next day (no senior doctors having visited her through the night) when she began to undergo multi-organ failure, Dr. Rahil along with his superior (Dr. Ramkumar) and a mentee/trainee, in the presence of the HOD Dr. Praveen Kumar, repeatedly gaslit the family members by claiming that the patient's organs were failing because we had not intubated the patient earlier (as this team of doctors had wanted us to do against her wishes) by advancing fanciful medical reasons for their claims. We came to know later that the reasons they offered up were not very plausible, leading us to wonder about their competence and understanding of medicine and cardiovascular anatomy as well. Regarding the level of staffing, the 15 bed Medical ICU is looked after by two (and if one sleeps, maybe just 1 - not sure of this) overworked trainee(s) most of the time. It is being managed by the General Medicine team whose senior doctors are all consultants (so they only need to show up at 9 am and then leave for OPD work and then head home). There are normally two anaesthetists (sometimes one?) shared by 3 ICUs and the surgeries but with an excellent HOD. There is no resident pulmonologist or a resident intensivist. The senior consulting anaesthetist didn't know how to enter parameters into the UI of the ventilator. The staff didn't seem to be able to operate the monitors in the ICU proficiently and errors have been happening with considerable frequency. Also, there was no CT scanner at the hospital from August through October 2023 and their partner diagnostic lab charges their patients around Rs. 10,000 per scan (inclusive of the cost of transportation by ambulance). When these matters were brought to the notice of management in August 2023 ( the abusiveness of Dr. Ramkumar's team seems to have been pointed out by others as well as far back as a year ago - see https://g.co/kgs/fst3sv ), two of the top administrators agreed to meet me, and provided consolation and heard me out. They assured us of their desire to serve mankind but explained that they never turn a poor person away from the hospital, and so haven't got much choice in whom they employ. We pointed out there were things that could be done to fix matters that wouldn't involve spending much money. But there the conversation ended. We still await information about action taken in regard to the problems we told the management about. No systematic / official inquiry has taken place so far to our knowledge, as of October 2023, so here, regretfully, is this review. Please also note that this review is only for the Medical ICU, and I am given to understand that there are several good departments (maybe the maternity and pediatric wards?) at the hospital. I will update this review if and when we receive any information on any positive changes. Most of the doctors and managers seem to be highly ethical and service-oriented, though there seem to be glaring exceptions, so I expect and hope there will be something better to write about in this regard someday (hopefully soon).

Nice hospital, affordable rates and services provided are good. Nice doctors and nursing staff. Entrance gate no.2 is a closer entry to the hospital for those passing through Hudson memorial church circle.