I’d like to bring to light, the most traumatizing experience that my wife and I had been through with Dr Gordon Tan of Joy clinic in Gleneagles. There was no joy with him at all!
On 10 May, my wife was supposed to see Dr Tan for her 38th week appt. But as she was in extreme pain in the morning, she decided to call Dr Tan to seek his advice. Dr Tan then ask her to admit to Mount Alvernia’s Hosp (Labour ward room 9) immediately and that he will go see her there. That was around 9am on 10 May. In the afternoon we keep calling Dr Tan, wanting to ask him how and that my wife is in horrible pain. But we never hear nor see him until 10pm, where he came to check on my wife for a mere 10mins n said she has to stay in Hosp.
On 11 May, we called Dr Tan as my wife was still in alot of pain. So much so that she couldn’t sit upright nor stand. Dr Tan said he was busy and will come and see her later before noon. When the pain escalated, we called Dr Tan again but again he said he was busy and will come soon. End up, he only came at 2pm, checked my wife for 5mins and say she can discharge and go back to Hosp for admission on 13 May, 11am.
Just for these 2 days, I spent around 1.2k of which Dr Tan’s fee was double because his visit to the hospital to see my wife was not due to labour. What kind of crap is that?
13 May, we admitted to Hosp at 11am (Labour Ward room 9) as per Dr Tan’s advice. My wife was experiencing minor contractions already. The whole day, we relied on the nurses at the hospital as we did not hear from Dr Tan at all. By 5pm, my wife was 1.5cm dilated and contractions are 10mins apart. Then we requested for epidural at 7pm, FYI, still not hearing anything from Dr Tan. He finally appeared at our delivery suite at 10pm and he decided to burst the water for faster dilation and then he went off. We didn’t see or hear from him again until the next day.
14 May morning 7am, the nurse checked on my wife and said she dilated 5cm. At close to 9am, the nurse checked and said 6cm. And at 10am, we received a call from Dr Tan and he said “I’m following your case closely. Nurse told me your wife has dilated 6cm and no further progression. She needed to be 10cm dilated for delivery. Would u like to consider caesarean?”
I was super pissed to be honest. Having to see how pain and horrible my wife was feeling, and the nurse came to check twice, report twice and all I got was a phone call from afar saying she has no progression and ask if we want to do c-sec? Couldn’t he have come see her way earlier and suggested it? My wife has been through 17hours of labour pain by now! And as I was constantly by her side, from what I see, there was progression!
Nurse check at 1045am, 7cm dilated, and 11am was 8cm dilated. At this point, I was having a mixed feeling because I’m happy because it’s very near to delivery and hopefully the end of pain for my wife. But was very angry because Dr Tan initially suggested c-sec due to no progression and seriously, that was bad judgement and to an extent, kind of inexperience, because it has dilated by another 2cm thus far! Anyway, Dr Tan suddenly appeared at a little past 10am. When nurse told him dilation is now 8cm, he said “OK, we will perform delivery now! Get me vacuum, I will help your wife on the dilation.”
We were kind of surprised. Even the nurse had this surprised/shock face on them. What happened to the “your wife can only deliver when dilation hits 10cm”??? My wife was on full dose epidural and she was totally numbed and she did mention this to Dr Tan, whom didn’t seem to be bothered about it. At this point, my wife was abit stressed and worried she can’t push well as she is too numb to feel anything. But i guessed her comments weren’t heard by them.
At the point of delivery, my wife had been through a total of 19hrs of labour pain. During the birth process, 2 nurses were pushing my wife’s belly from each side. Dr Tan just ask my wife to keep pushing and my wife just keeps pushing without any feeling. Then Dr Tan stood up and took a step back and tried to pull my baby out by using a vacuum then he used a clamp thereafter. He clamped my baby’s head out and when he finally managed to get my baby’s head out by a last push and pull, a big gush of blood splashed out! It was seriously a big gush of blood, covering 2sqm of the floor around the bed! And even the nurses whom were standing by the side of my wife got splashed too!
The nurses commented “hey! The blood splashed onto my face and my body!” Then Dr Tan told them off and said “it’s no big deal!” One of the nurse then said “she’s a hep B carrier!” Dr Tan didn’t say anything after that. It was hurtful to hear that but I can totally understand the nurse’s plight. Who wants to contract hep B or any other illnesses right? My wife is hep B positive and this information was given to all the Hosp staff and Dr Tan right from start.
Anyway, my wife turned pale right after delivery. My baby was out and crying. I took a look at my baby and went back to check on my wife. Dr Tan and the nurses keep asking me to check on my baby, but honestly, I was more worried for my wife but Dr Tan was nonchalant.
After he cleaned and stitched up my wife, he turn over, shook my hand and says “congratulations! You want natural birth, I give you natural birth!” and He said this with some sarcasm.
Honestly when he suggested c-sec to me at the 17th hour, I really don’t know how to make that decision. I called my niece whom has already been through 2 births, she told me to ask the doctor how necessary was it? She asked if my wife was given induction pills or induction drip and she told me I may be charged double surgical cost if u change to c-sec now and tell me to ask the doctor clearly on the situation. As far as we know, there were no pills inserted into my wife. My niece already finds it “funny” when Dr Tan admitted by wife on Sunday (13 May, 11am). Unless emergency or special cases, or if we specifically wanted to deliver on that day, usually gynae won’t as us to admit on Sunday and even if they do, the time check-in would be early morning or pass mid-night so that the first day won’t be wasted just sleeping through and waiting. And the best part is that Dr Tan checks us in on Sunday without the intention of delivering our baby! In the end, we had to pay extra day as natural birth package was 3 days stay only and my wife stayed for 4 days.
On 16 May, the day of discharge (patient’s ward room 324B), Dr Tan came and did a final check and we were given a consent form to sign about “vacuum and forceps delivery” handed over by Dr Tan and instructed the nurses to let my wife sign. I am very reluctant to sign on the form as there’s no notice of the procedure at all during the time of delivery. I told my wife not to sign the form; however, the nurse told they can only discharged by wife only after the form is signed. They also requested Christine from labour ward to come over and explain to me about this. I and my wife have no other choice but to sign on the consent form so that we can be discharged.
All in all, Dr Gordan Tan made my wife’s first pregnancy very horrible. She is still traumatized today! It was our first child naturally we will be very anxious. He did not walk us through our pregnancy stages, nor advised us on the delivery process. When we have questions, he didn’t answer much, mostly brushing our questions off and took it in a “cool” manner. The only enthusiastic thing about Dr Tan is when he started selling “Immunocal”, an MLM product. Is it even right for a professional doctor to sell MLM product in he’s own clinic? In the hospital he didn’t attend to my wife with more urgency, despite her constant calls to tell him how pain she was in.
Come to think of it, I suspected the reason why he admitted us on the 13 May and rush through the delivering process on the 14th, is partly also because he is going to travel. We only found out he’s away on oversea trip on the 18th when my wife try to make another appoint with him to check on her wounds. End up on 19th May, we when to CCK polyclinic for checks, the doctor in polyclinic suspects wound infection and later and referred us to KK hospital on the same day.
Although Dr Tan was not being very helpful in our regular checks with him, we didn’t think much since my wife was not having a bad pregnancy. We thought he would be more serious when the time comes for my wife’s delivery. We were so wrong! He took his own sweet time, uncompassionate and unprofessional and wasn’t much concerned of my wife’s horrible pain. After delivery of my baby, he has that “my job is done, k bye thanks” kind of attitude. It was too horrible!
I just want to share my experiences and forewarn anyone whom is seeing him or planning to see him. FYI, my baby has forcep marks across the left of her face and abrasions from her face to the back on her head due to vacuum and clamping: