'We thought we had to rush our dad to hospital'

58-year-old Andheri resident Rajesh Khurana

AN Andheri resident - Rajesh Khurana, 58, - was in for a shock last week when an online pharmacy delivered him a report with a very high reading of his creatinine level. While the normal range is 0.5-1.3, his report mentioned 8.0. His family thought he needed to be rushed to hospital thinking his kidney was functioning at 30 per cent capacity, as the report stated. However, a timely second round of tests conducted at Soorya Hospital on the advice of their family doctor, revealed a normal creatinine level of 0.8.

Once in three months

Khurana told mid-day, "On July 15, I booked the tests through the PharmEasy app. I get my urine, lipid and creatinine levels checked every three months as I am diabetic. I had last undergone these tests in April when I was hospitalised after a stroke. The results were normal then."

Khurana said that the following day a youth came home to collect his blood samples. "He did not know what he was doing. After three attempts he managed to take the sample. The same person returned the next morning with the reports, which showed my creatinine level was 8.0. We were shocked, because according to it, I needed immediate hospitalisation," he added.

He said, "The same evening, I called my family doctor, who was taken aback. She advised me to take a second opinion and that's when I underwent the tests again at Soorya Hospital. The test report showed my creatinine level at 0.8. This clearly shows that there was a mistake on the part of PharmEasy. They should be held accountable for it."

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'We were worried'

Khurana's son Yash said, "We were really worried after we saw the PharmEasy reports. All of it was happening post a paralytic attack he suffered three months back. We started to panic at the thought of going through the process of finding a hospital bed in these trying times. At the same time, all we could think of was whether my dad would survive,"

On their family doctor's advice, a second round of blood tests at Soorya hospital revealed that his creatinine level was normal at 0.8. Pic: Istock

He added, "Instead of 0.8, the PharmEasy report mentioned 8.0. This points at the fact that reports provided by the lab are not even checked by a pathologist. We called the helpline repeatedly to confront them, but to no avail. You book a service online to make your life easy, but this one not only led to panic for us."

Second blood sample

However, on July 23 morning, the same person who had collected the blood sample on July 16 arrived at Rajesh's house for a second sample. When mid-day contacted him, the person said, "Yes, I had gone to take his blood sample a second time. There was some error in the readings, which is why the process needs to be repeated. He will get the report by Thursday evening or Friday morning." When asked to share the number of a senior from the company, he said it was against protocol.

When mid-day called PharmEasy's helpline number, a customer care representative said the only way to contact someone was through email. Though an email has been sent to them, no response has been received yet.

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