The CoVid business!!

Sitting here in the covid general ward of a hospital, today I realise that sickness is just a business..

My grandmother who fell from the bed was admitted in a hospital and received a few stitches.. She was in the hospital for a week undergoing treatment as she is 90 yrs old.. Sadly couple of nights ago her heart rate reduced and we had to shift her to a bigger hospital with the required facilities..

On bringing her here, they took her in and the next morning the doctor informs us that she is corona positive.. Now I don't know how she could get it as she was in the hospital itself since a week.. anyway, I agreed to the hospital claims and asked them to treat her for the same.. now this is where the business starts..

Two days in the ICU costed me 1.3lakh Rs.. And then they informed that I need to shift her to a room.. I agreed and then they give me another attack saying the room rent per day would cost me a good 35-40k.. i was shocked and asked them to give me details on y it's so expensive.. For that they responded saying 3950 is basic room charge and apart from that the rest is just PPE charges for the doctor, nurse, staff etc and son medicines.. I didn't have a choice as my grandmother's health was a major concern for me.. I agreed again and paid the advance they asked for.. after which they told me that one family member has to stay back..

now here it gets even more interesting.. so a non covid infected person has to stay with a covid infected person and risk it all.. however, we couldn't find anyone who would agree to stay.. so I decided to do so.. and again was informed that I would have to arrange my own PPE and sign a bond stating that incase I get infected, I cannot blame the hospital nor the staff.. wasn't happy about it but still signed..

Now starts the play.. after a while they come and tell me there are no rooms available and so they shall shift grany to general ward.. now according to rules, I'm not supposed to stay in general ward but these guys insisted I should stating that the nurses would come on rounds only ever 20 mins and between if there is an emergency it would be best if a person is in there..

So I again agreed and stayed.. in the very first 10mins of my stay, I was shocked by the hospital and staff..

Every patient is next to each other.. and there is no nurse inside.. they all sit out and come once in 20 mins.. and then came an emergency situation when grany needed a bit of attention and so I run and press the emergency button.. which didn't work..

Yes.. you read it right!! The emergency bell wasn't working.. so I ran out of the ward to call the nurse.. for which they all rudely reacted "ur not allowed out".. and I was like "there's an emergency".. for which they asked me to call on a number from the phone inside.. I called almost 3 times but neither did anyone pick up nor anyone came..

Finally after 20 mins an attender came and informed me that the bell isn't working.. just wow isn't it??

They then gave me a phone number saying incase of emergency call on that number.. I'm hoping that incase there's an emergency, someone picks the phone!!

This has just been day 1 and I'm here for just couple of hours.. don't know how the rest of the night is going to go..

And yeah, I'm wearing a two layered mask and hand gloves while typing all this and my ear is hurting me thanks to the elastic of the mask..