January 18, 2011
I delivered my child at St. Isabel's as I was misled into believing that it was an old established hospital with service in mind (just as many missionary schools and hospitals are in this country.) However, after my personal experience I will not recommend the hospital to anyone. It is expensive and yet the care I got was substandard. Some of their Doctors are good but many are not and since the administration is inefficient, you could land in serious trouble. Both me and my son were in perfect health after the delivery, but my son was kept in the Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for a couple of hours soon after birth. (Pls understand that there is a hefty fee that goes to the pediatrician and hospital if the child is kept in the NICU). When asked for the reason as to why my son was in the NICU, my family was given no satisfactory reply, except that they want to "monitor" the baby, though they also added he was absolutely healthy (my son had an APGAR score of 9/10). At that time, we had full faith in the hospital and pediatrician, so we didn't insist on a more reasonable explanation. Instead of being breastfed in the first half hour after birth as is recommended by everyone, both mother and child were separated for nearly 3 hours. After that, the Doctor advised that we should formula feed my son as the little milk that I was expressing was too little (though I now understand that it is normal for a new mother to express only little milk in the beginning). Well, we agreed to formula feed, but this multi bedded hospital with the "latest equipment" could not provide us even a spoon or bowl for formula feeding. We had to borrow all this from another ill fated patient. Sterilization of the borrowed vessels were also not possible, neither was it recommended. Somehow, with great determination we managed sterilizing the vessels. We then fed my son unnecessary formula milk. After 3 days of further mismanagement by the staff, I was discharged with my son who was now running a temperature. (All the little deeds of mismanagement cannot be mentioned in this review as it will get too long, but they ensured that both mother and son were ill and completely exhausted after the 3 day hospital stay.) We were fortunate to get discharged despite my son's fever as me and my son escaped further ill treatment. However, very soon I was forced to come back with a precariously ill boy to the same hospital as I didnt know where else to go. Luckily this time, my 4 day old son was under the care of a very caring and competent lady doctor and she brought him back to normal. I am extremely grateful to her. However, barring a few good doctors, this hospital is dominated by incompetence. Now I know that my case was not a solitary case; many have faced precisely my kind of treatment. Delivering children in hospitals are supposed to be for ensuring their good health, but I feel, this hospital ensured that my healthy child fall ill. Unless you personally know the doctors who will treat you there, I would never recommend this hospital to anyone.