Update: Singapore hospital denies it discharged accident victim without proper care
A man has claimed that he was prematurely discharged from a local hospital last month following a serious car accident, forcing him to seek medical care elsewhere.
Mohan Raj, 28, told Coconuts Singapore yesterday that he was involuntarily discharged from the public Khoo Teck Puat hospital despite his wounds not being treated properly on Feb. 16, the same day he got into the accident. He then turned to the private Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital where he was admitted three days and had stitches on his head.
“My dad spoke to the doctor and told them to keep me for the day, but the doctor said he will speak to the senior doctor and get back to him. Eventually, they did not get back to my bed and they push me out in a wheelchair,” Raj said, a day after he took to Facebook recounting his experience. The logistics manager said that Khoo Teck Puat hospital staff conducted a scan and found no internal head injuries, and gave him three days’ medical leave.
Khoo Teck Puat Hospital is investigating his case, spokeswoman Jolyn Law told Coconuts Singapore.
According to Raj, the doctor at the private hospital he subsequently went to was “shocked” to learn Raj was told to go home despite his condition.
He said his wounds were not cleaned properly and around his head was “loosely” wrapped. Photos he posted online show injuries to several parts of his body, including abrasions on his knee, scalp and foot.
Raj said the car accident happened on the Central Expressway near the Ang Mo Kio Institute of Technical Education College in the wee hours of Sunday.
He was in the car with two others when the vehicle hit the curb and spun out of control. Raj and a female friend were thrown from the car while the driver remained inside. The two were then taken to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, he said.
Later, at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, a doctor put sutures in his head wound and “re-did all of my dressing,” he said.
“[The doctor] was asking me how did KTPH even discharge me [without doing] proper dressing and also stitches on my head. Also given the condition that I was not able to walk,” Raj recalled. He said yesterday that Khoo Teck Puat Hospital has not reached out to him ever since he went public with his case.
Meanwhile, his female friend, named Shopana Selvakumaran, was also forced to turn to a different private hospital following frustration with Khoo Teck Puat.
In a separate now-deleted Facebook post, she complained about having to re-explain the accident to staff there at multiple follow-up appointments, “because proper follow-up instructions weren’t given during discharge.”
“Oh, I even incurred a whole new A&E [Accident and Emergency] invoice,” she added.
More news from the Little Red Dot at Coconuts Singapore.
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