Medical practice is now a business - II

Very poised, the lady said - 'How much do you expect the operation to cost ?. 
I replied - 'My medical practitioner has informed us that it would cost not more than 25k'. She promptly followed - 'This would be the cost provided you choose general ward for the stay' and further added - 'The general ward would contain 40 beds each separated by a curtain'. 
My father-in-law and myself were shocked.  
1) We did not expect money to be a deciding criterion, as though she was selling some commodity to us. It was left to us whether to proceed with the General ward.
2) We expected a decent private room for 25k.
Shaking myself as the reality pinched, I replied - 'I have a baby to nurse and expect some privacy'. The staff paused for a minute and said - 'Well, you can take a look at our general ward before deciding'. 
We readily accepted the invite and quickly paid a visit to the GW. 
It was not bad, we thought. The beds were neatly laid in a row and looked cleaner than we expected. The attender however (person accompanying the patient during the stay) had to sleep on the floor adjacent to the bed. We decided to go ahead considering the stay to be only for 2 days. The admission form had it mentioned 25k approx and we were asked to pay 15K immediately. The ward nurse said that the operation would happen only when this pymt is made. 
We were asked to stay in a single private room (AC), which confused us. However the nurse quickly cleared our doubt, adding it was a temporary stay until a bed in general ward was made available. The room tariff for GW was 1200 and for this room - 2700. The staff assured that the billing would be for 1200 only, this being a temporary stay. We were taken aback by the room tariff rules. A single day charge was calculated between midnight to next day midnight. In other words, if I check-in today at 4:00 pm and get discharged tomorrow say at 3:30 pm, I would be charged for 2 days though my stay is less than 24 hrs. The irony was that we agreed to all these norms.
I slowly examined the room allocated to us. The room reminded me of the facilities provided in a hospital where I was admitted for delivery. My delivery charges in that hosp was 25k for 3 nights stay, which also gave us a decent single private room with AC. Nevertheless, we went ahead with SRMC because the former hospital does not do sterilization until the second baby is 2 yrs old. 
After a 3 hrs stay in the private room we were shifted to GW. With just a partition in between each bed, we could hear patients in nearby beds moan with pain, cry from new borns etc.. My mom decided to keep varshu at home during nights, not to be disturbed by surroundings and we thought she was right. My operation was scheduled for next day at 9:30 AM.

To be continued..