New Delhi: ‘VIP culture’ in hospitals can compromise patient safety and equitable access to care, with pressure to accommodate influential patients sometimes leading to medical decisions that depart from standard protocols, AIIMS Delhi doctors have warned.
Delayed mobilisation contributed to lung complications, extending her hospital stay to 12 days, compared with the usual five days for similar surgeries, the authors reported. The authors also reported that, in their experience at the oncology centre, three breast surgery patients could have been operated on in the time taken up by one patient whose private-ward stay was extended.
They said prolonged stays and demands for extra attention can reduce patient turnover and affect the use of limited hospital resources. Ray said discrimination between patients in a premier hospital erodes trust, undermines staff morale and damages a positive work culture by allowing status and influence to take precedence over clinical need and equal dignity. This was an observation from their clinical practice, not a hospital-wide estimate. Prof.
In the first, a 60-year-old woman with early-stage breast cancer underwent a PET-CT scan after her relatives insisted on it. In another case, a 58-year-old woman with advanced ovarian cancer underwent surgery without adequate pre-operative preparation following pressure from hospital management.
Ray, professor of Surgical Oncology, told TOI. In an opinion paper published in Oncology Reviews, surgical oncologists Prof. M D Ray and his MCh student Dr Hema Siri Kottu describe how pressure from influential patients, their families and hospital management can lead to unnecessary investigations, surgery before adequate preparation and prolonged intensive care stays. “Every cancer patient deserves the same standard of evidence-based care. VIP syndrome arises when a patient’s influence or connections alter clinical decisions,” Prof. The authors describe two cases. The scan showed increased uptake in lymph nodes in her chest, prompting a further biopsy to check for cancer spread. The biopsy found reactive changes rather than cancer spread.