I am livid and shocked

I am livid, incensed, furious. I am still trembling with rage. As you know we went to for chemo 8 this morning. As always in spite of our pleadings it all began late. Finally the nurse arrived with her trolley, inserted the needle in the port making poor Ranjan wince as always. Actually he starts wincing before the needle touching him. The premed bottle was also placed on the trolley so I decided to have a look and to my absolute horror saw that it included dexamethasone, a medicine Ranjan had reacted to violently to dexona. That is what had made him take off on a time travel at chemo 1. It was then decided that he would not be given this the next time as is clearly stated in the picture above.

I got up to take a walk and glanced at the bottle with its hand written label and to my UTTER HORROR found that dexona 8mg was included. This in spite of the fact that the junior doctor had come to see him and I had reminded her of this. I immediately reported it to the nurse station and the doctor on duty. There was a bit of confusion and the bottle was removed. I also waited to inform the senior oncologist and though he tried to go into damage control mode, I guess he needed to protect his team, I told him categorically that there had been a mistake and I had seen it with my own eyes. Thank God this was before they began the drip.

I am now sure that dexona was given to him in the last chemo. Actually nothing has started by the time I left and Shamika took over and she would not have read the label, but Ranjan's extreme reaction to chemo 7 and his state of mind and confusion were due to the wrong medication.

What makes me beside myself and seething in anger is that this is a SUPER SPECIALITY hospital and one would expect things to be spot on. It is a serious matter as most of the patients have an implicit trust in the people in white and submit to their 'protocols' blindly. Imagine if a wrong medication results in serious consequences or even death. In India one cannot even sue them.

The commercialisation of medicine has made health caretakers into money making hounds. Who can one trust. One pays hefty amounts in the hope of getting cured, not to die because systems fail. When you are handling medication as lethal as chemotherapy drugs you must have multiple checks. What I have seen in the past months is a happy go lucky who cares attitude that one does not expect of what is now known as SUPER SPECIALITY hospitals.

It now puts into doubt everything that I have been sold with glib and smooth spoken assurances. It is time to take things in my hand. Thank God I am a control freak!