Save Locally. Act Globally.
Med Tour Details
| Med Journeys, Tim |
| Visit website |
Rating:  (5) Reviews:1 |
| 2010-07-19 00:00:00 - anonomous | |
| Staff Friendliness |  (3) |
| Responsiveness |  (1) |
| Comfort level | (1) |
| Cost |  (2) |
| Full Disclosure | (1) |
| Would Recommend | No |
| Review comments To begin with, when I responded to the Med Journey’s internet advertisement and was assigned to Tim Wallace in the NJ office we discussed prices and travel and agreed on the $6,500 as advertised. Thereafter I arranged for my extended sick leave from work and used my points for the airline tickets as I was bringing my wife to India with me. The documents Tim sent me said that there would be a $1,000 discount as I was buying my own tickets. During my next conversation with Tim I was informed that the internet ad was in error and that the price was greater than posted. I was a little upset and we haggled back and fourth, concluding that we would add $500 for the trip, (a concession to the $1,000 internet error) and $500 for my wife’s accommodations. This conveniently brought the price back up to the original and I was providing the airfare. A month later I received a call from the Med Journeys secretary asking for a full payment 5 months prior to my trip. Checking the paperwork I was sent I saw that I only needed to put a 30% deposit and the balance 30 days prior to departure. I had to call Tim Wallace a number of times to correct the (error?). When we arrived in New Delhi we were not greeted at the airport as promised and had to wait around for almost one hour and had to make several calls to the USA and in India before our host showed up to take us to our hotel. He arrived in a local un-air conditioned taxi too small for our bags so one bag had to ride in the front seat as we all cramped in the back. Our first three days were spent at a five star Marriott Hotel at our own expense, which we had set up to give us a couple of days sight seeing before the surgery. It was the last five star hotel we saw for the rest of the trip. We were then taken to the hospital. This was not the hospital advertised, the beautiful 15 acre modern facility housing mostly foreign patients. No, we were taken to an old facility in the middle of the New Delhi Embassy area where at we saw what appeared to be less than 10 percent foreign patients. Med Journey’s advertises the Apollo Hospital group and we were put in the Primus Hospital. When we questioned Dr. Peters (at least he was as advertised) he said that his staff had been at Max, another hospital group, but had to change. He had never been at the Apollo Group. MED JOURNEY’S IS STILL ADVERTISING THE APOLLO GROUP AS THE HOSPITAL USED IN INDIA! The stay at the hospital was OK, most of the doctors friendly. Although the nurses spoke English, it was so heavily accented that it was nearly impossible to understand and they could not understand anything we said. Our only major complaint was the sofa bed on the floor of my room that was the provision for my wife’s stay. It was very uncomfortable and neither bed was big enough for the two of us. Next surprise, we were charged for our medications upon leaving the hospital and the contract clearly stated that they were included. We were then taken to a local hotel, definitely not a five star hotel that was in the middle of a residential district in the heart of New Delhi where we were stranded with no place to walk and no one to speak with. This was not the Hotel recovery we were promised. I was on a restrictive diet of soup broth and juices and the only soups I was given were picked up at a local vendor and always had rice, noodles, chicken or a combination of them in the soup. The hotel was not used to recovery patients there and our contact there told us that they were busy with so many patients and the other hotels were full so they put us there. We had to venture off to find food and finally located a convenience store where we bought fruit juice and various broths that we cooked in the coffee pot in the room. The little refrigerator only worked if it was pulled out of the enclosure and sat on the floor in front of the bathroom door. To top it off, there was only one English channel that played the same movies every day and that kept going away until we informed the desk and they sent someone up to adjust the cable. We felt trapped in a prison cell for five days. When we returned home I called Tim Wallace and left a message to call me. He did not. I waited a couple of weeks and called from an unknown number and Tim answered the phone. I told him all was well, the surgery went as planned, there were minor complaints about a few things but why I called was I wanted a refund for the money charged for the medications I had to purchase before leaving the hospital. It came to just a little more than $100.00. He said “oh yes not a problem” I asked if he wanted me to send the receipts and he told me that wouldn’t be necessary. It is three weeks later now and I haven’t received any notifications, I have left a message with his secretary and three messages on his office phone and have not received any calls from Tim. There are other companies doing Medical Journeys. You can even contact the doctors directly (my procedure would have been $2,500 had I gone through the doctor himself) their names are listed on the different websites of different Medical Journey companies. But if you do choose to outsource your surgery, I highly recommend avoiding Med Journeys of New Jersey and Tim Wallace in particular. | |
