Dr. Gandhi fell at home and broke his hip bone. Dr. Gandhi is 87-year-old, who practiced till he was 78 years old. He had no diabetes or blood pressure. His only problem was dementia, from which he was suffering since last 5 years. He hardly remembers anything and stays all alone with his 80-year-old wife. Dr. Gandhi has two married daughters.
Dr. Gandhi underwent a replacement surgery of his hip bone successfully and suffered no complications. However, our physiotherapist could hardly get anything out of him. He used to be violent at times or simply refuse to co-operate. He used to stay awake most nights in spite of sedatives, and then sleep the whole day. His diet suffered. He was on a urinary catheter and a diaper. He was put on an air mattress since he refused to turn in bed and we were worried that he would end up having bed sores.
The time came to discharge him from the hospital as there was nothing to be done from the medical team. Physiotherapy was advised by the doctors so that he could get out of bed and get going, however, sadly, he refused to co-operate with the doctors, mainly due to his poor mental health. Both his daughters started panicking as we started discussing with them about his discharge. Though from a well-off family, the daily bill of a good hospital started pinching them. How would they take care of their father at home? How would their frail mother manage him? They had their own families to look after and could not spend the entire day with him.
This is where the new home care startups came to our help. These new startups provide almost entire hospital facilities at home. We arranged a hospital type of bed and an air mattress on rent. We arranged two ward boys to take care of him in two 12 hours shift. We arranged a MBBS doctor to visit him once a week to check on his parameters. The cost of all this was almost 50 % of his daily hospital bill.
We lack nursing home facilities for such elderly patients who need to be discharged from the hospital but are not fit enough to go home. In foreign countries, these facilities are available (though very expensive). The new startups in India have managed to fill this gap very well.
We see patients like Dr. Gandhi who have their kids in the USA and no one local to take care of them. For such elderly couples, any such institution that takes care of them and yet lets them live a quality life, is a god-send facility.
These startups vary from region to region and your treating doctors would be happy to share their numbers with you.