r2i forum

Hi All,

I am planning to R2I by end of April 07 to Bangalore from sunnyvale, CA (BAy ARea). We will be R2I'ing with 8 months old baby and planning to settle in south bangalore.

Are there any hospitals with good pediatricians. Any feedback would be really helpful.

Thanks

http://bangalore-info.blogspot.com/

This has some good info on Bangalore with important phone numbers.

I think it would be worthwhile if folks made recommendations based on their experiences at a particular hospital or with a doctor.

We had gone to Manipal Hospital 's Dermatology(Dr KrupaShankar) and Eye specialists(Dr Vani) .
Both the Doctors were HoD and thorough professionals and looks like both were US/UK trained and patiently answered all the questions.

The consultation fees is standard 250/-.

After this I had a good feeling about Manipal hospital till I saw the other thread where the poster mentioned about their regular hospital.

Folks,
I am curious to know about medical facilities in Bangalore, My intention is not to start a debate comparing US/Bangalore but to know in general how good Bangalore's medical infrastructure is.

- Do you get easy access to emergency?
- Is insurance provided by companies generally okay for day today medical needs?
- Is there some sense of accountability amongst doctors given that there are so many R2I folks in Bangalore?
- Do guys R2Ied have double thoughts due to medical facilities reason?

thanks

There are some excellent medical centers in Bangalore, specially the heart care centers like Wockhardt, Mallya hospital and so on.

I can tell of an instance where one of our relatives had to undergo a surgery for treatment to anuerism in the leg. Anuerism is one of the silent killers with no clearly marked symptoms. The doctor who operated is an R2I guy who returned after 15 years of service as a surgeon in Upstate New York. He was saying the variety of cases he has seen in the last one year is probably more than what he saw in all of his service in the U.S. He has now opened a vascular practice in Bangalore where he is overbooked from people coming in from Australia, Middle east and U.S (small number). What I am saying is there are expert doctors out here in Bangalore, it is a matter of finding them and getting their time.

Talking of accountability, one of the surgeons I know was saying that he is extra careful specially when he has to operate on people from rural areas (or not much educated) since if things were to go wrong, they don't understand and he is personally threatened by some of these kinds of people. The careless attitude usually is okay in a Government hospital setting, it is not taken for granted in the private hospitals.

- Do you get easy access to emergency?
If you go to private hospitals, good emergency care is available.

- Is insurance provided by companies generally okay for day today medical needs?
Insurance provided by companies usually pay for in-patient charges, they do not pay for charges incurred if you were to say go and see a doctor for a fever or cough. Most of the big MNC's along with covering your spouse and kids also cover your dependents like parents, which is really great.

- Do guys R2Ied have double thoughts due to medical facilities reason?
I R2I'ed in Sept' 05, I am definetly not having double thoughts specially related to medical facilities.

Couple of years back, the hospitals didnot provide food ( lunch / dinner) and the staff makes the patients run around for medicines, injections and things like that. This makes folks and patients stay at hospital very stressful.

Is the same situation ? Any improvement in services now ?

Hope2r2i: I don't know where your experience was... You still get the same experience if you visit the govt hospital or small nursing homes..

The corporate hospitals are good and provide everything. THat's how they make money... Some of them have 5 star facilities. I visited a maternity room in Apollo and was impressed.. Of course it costs money..

Mallya, Sagar Apollo, Wockhardt and Manipal Hospitals are the good ones.

Same holds true for doctors. Lot of good doctors and specialists. (And lot of not so good ones too..)

Outpatient medical expense is not very high compare to the income of a IT guy. (Specialist charges may be 500-1000).

Hospitalization expenses are covered by the medical insurance provided by most employers.. Or you can take a family medical insurance. It costs around 10k per year for a coverage of 5Lacs (hospitalization only)

Thanks, how are urgent care/emergency services? Do these hospitals have reasonable ER services?
I am curoius as there were several instances in US when kids fell sick during weekends here in US and we needed urgent care.