UK-based radiologist impressed with medical facilities in India vis-à-vis Glasgow

The London News.Net
Thursday 19th April, 2007 (ANI)

London, Apr 19 : In India we may criticise the medical facilities available here and hail those in the UK, but amazingly, a London-based retired radiologist consultant experienced the opposite. He described the medical facilities in Glasgow as "filthy" and hailed those in India.

He said that his wife, who suffered from a head injury after falling off a bicycle, received a "far better treatment" in Ajmer and then in Delhi, as compared to NHS in the UK.

Mark Ziervogel's (70) wife Toni (66) first received treatment in Ajmer and then in New Delhi, before flying back to London escorted by a lady nurse and a doctor.

Mark said that the hospital in Ajmer, where Toni was seen by a neurosurgeon and given CT scans that revealed bruising to the brain, was "superb". He also praised its cleanliness, the efficiency of the staff and the high standard of equipment.

After five days of being admitted in the intensive care unit (ICU), she was transferred to the Max Super Hospital in Delhi and on March 6 she had recovered enough to be taken home to Scotland. She was accompanied on the flight by an Indian doctor and nurse, and Ziervogel said he "blushed" with embarrass
ment when the Indian doctor walked into the "filthy" Western Infirmary in Glasgow.

He said that it was more than four hours before his wife was given a bed on a surgical ward, after which the staff then told him that the hospital was not able to handle patients with head injuries who required rehabilitation.

Incidentally, she fell out of the bed and broke her jaw during her stay at the Western. She has since been waiting for five weeks for a bed to become available at the physical disability rehabilitation unit in the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.

Meanwhile, Opposition parties accuse the Labour Party of running down the NHS. Shona Robison, the Scottish National Party health spokesman, said that standards had declined in the NHS. "It strikes me as strange that an acute receiving hospital with an A and E can only handle one case at a time. The Indian doctor was appalled. He was also appalled at the filthy and dirty aspect of the Western," The Telegraph quoted him as saying.

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