Short Stay Care Services

Is your procedure really day care?

Your consultant decides that, not the list. Further down this page is the hospital's list of procedures done as day care, grouped by speciality. Finding yours on it is a good sign, but it does not settle the question. Whether a procedure can be done as day care for you depends on the procedure, on the anaesthetic, and on the other conditions you live with, such as heart disease, diabetes or sleep apnoea.

So ask your consultant to say it in plain words: am I going home the same day, or am I staying the night? Ask again at the pre-anaesthetic check, because that is when the anaesthetist has seen your tests.

Two things the hospital's own records show being booked as day care in the 30 days to 9 September 2026 are coronary angiography and haemodialysis.

How long the day takes

You are asked to come in early in the day, because you are expected to go home the same day. A Guest Relation Executive receives you and takes you to the day care unit, and your admission is completed there rather than at a counter.

The hospital does not publish a standard arrival time or a typical length of stay, and it would be different for a cataract and for an arthroscopy in any case. Ask for two times when the procedure is booked: the time to arrive, and the earliest time someone should come to collect you. Expect the waiting, the preparation and the recovery to take longer than the procedure itself.

Getting there and getting home

Plan for an adult to come with you and to take you home. After sedation or an anaesthetic you may not be steady, and the instructions you are given on the way out are easier to follow if a second person has heard them.

The hospital has not published a standing rule on whether a day-care patient may leave alone, so ask the unit when the procedure is booked. If you are told you must be collected, arrange that before the day rather than on it.

Eating, drinking and your usual medicines

There will be an instruction about when to stop eating and drinking. It comes from your consultant or the anaesthetist, it is not the same for every procedure or every anaesthetic, and it is not published here because a wrong fasting time is dangerous. Ask for it in writing when the procedure is booked, and follow it exactly. A procedure can be postponed on the day if you have eaten.

Ask separately about your regular tablets and injections, naming each one. Blood thinners, diabetes medicines and insulin usually need their own instruction, and some have to be stopped days in advance.

Will you be asleep?

That depends on the procedure. Some day-care work is done under local anaesthetic with you awake, some under sedation, and some under a general or spinal anaesthetic.

Before a planned procedure an anaesthetist assesses you and plans the anaesthetic around any heart, lung, kidney or liver problem you already have. General, spinal and regional anaesthesia are given with continuous monitoring, and sedation is used for endoscopy and for imaging. Afterwards you are looked after in the post-anaesthesia care unit for the first hours, and pain relief after the procedure is part of the anaesthetist's plan.

Tell the anaesthetist about every medicine you take, any allergy, and any trouble you or your family have had with an anaesthetic before.

If you need to stay

Day care is a plan, not a promise. A small number of patients need to stay: bleeding, pain that is not settling, sickness after the anaesthetic, or a surgeon finding more than the scan showed. That is not a failure of the plan, and it is why this work is done inside a hospital.

If it happens you are admitted to a bed here. The hospital has ward beds and 140 intensive-care beds in the same building, and the emergency department is open 24 hours a day, every day.

Two things worth doing in advance: bring what you would need for one night, and ask at financial counselling what an unplanned overnight stay would add to the bill and to your insurance approval.

Insurance, and the 24-hour question

This is the question most day-care patients in India arrive with. Some health insurance policies pay only for treatment that involves an admission of at least 24 hours, and then list separately the day-care procedures they will cover without one. Whether yours does, and whether your procedure is on its list, is a question about your policy. The hospital cannot answer it for you, and neither can this page.

What the hospital does is this. At financial counselling a Guest Relation Executive gives you an estimate for the treatment with no charges held back. If you are insured, they collect your documents and send them with the estimate to your insurance company or TPA for pre-authorisation, and tell you where the pre-authorisation has got to.

So ask for the pre-authorisation answer before the day, not on it, and ask for it in the specific form you need: has the insurer approved this procedure as day care, without a 24-hour admission? If the insurer or TPA later refuses the final bill, you are given the bills, copies of your reports and the claim form to claim reimbursement yourself.

If you are paying yourself, the estimate is itemised, and the hospital's current treatment package prices are published on its web portal and mobile app so you can look them up before you come in.

Going home, and going back to work

How long you need before driving, lifting, bathing a wound or returning to work depends on the procedure, and no single answer covers the list on this page. Get yours from the consultant at booking, when you can still arrange leave, rather than on the way out of the door.

Questions worth asking before you leave the unit:

• When can I eat normally, and when can I take my usual medicines again?
• When can I drive, lift, climb stairs and go back to work?
• When can the dressing get wet, and when does it come off?
• What is normal pain, bleeding or swelling after this, and what is not?
• Which symptoms mean I should come back in tonight rather than wait?
• When is my follow-up, and who do I call in the meantime?
• Can I have a letter for my employer if I need leave?

If you are unwell after you get home

If something is clearly wrong after a day-care procedure, do not wait for a follow-up appointment and do not wait for morning. Come to the emergency department, which is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, or call the hospital on 040 4699 9999. Heavy bleeding, a fever, pain that is getting worse, breathlessness or not being able to pass urine are all reasons to come in.

Procedures done in day care

These are the procedures the hospital publishes as day-care work, grouped by speciality. Check with your consultant that the one you need is still done here as day care, and that it is day care for you.

Ear, nose and throat

• Septo-rhinoplasty
• Myringoplasty, myringotomy and insertion of grommet
• Tympanotomy
• Direct laryngoscopy and biopsy
• Nasal endoscopy
• Antrostomy and antral wash
• Anterior and posterior nasal packing
• Removal of a foreign body from the nose
• Ear wax removal and ear lobe prick
• Suturing of the pinna
• Stone removal from the submandibular salivary gland
• Excision of papilloma
• Excision biopsy, punch biopsy and gland biopsy
• Furuncle excision, incision and drainage
• Examination under anaesthesia

General surgery

• Suturing of wounds
• Incision and drainage
• Excision of sebaceous cyst, wart and carbuncle
• Breast lump excision
• Lymph node biopsy and gland biopsy
• Circumcision and eversion of sac
• Catheterisation and suprapubic cystostomy
• Cystoscopy
• Intercostal drainage
• Central venous line insertion
• Depomedrol injection

Urology

• Bladder stone removal
• Cystoscopy and ureteroscopy with DJ stenting, one side
• Shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL)
• Hypospadias repair
• Circumcision

Kidney care

• Haemodialysis, including acute and day-care sessions
• Creation of an AV fistula for dialysis

Heart

• Coronary angiography as a day-care procedure

Eye

• Cataract surgery with lens implant, including phacoemulsification
• Dacryocystectomy

Brain and nerve surgery

• Endoscopic procedures
• Shunt insertion

Orthopaedics

• Fracture reduction with a plaster cast
• Arthroscopy of the shoulder, knee and ankle
• ACL reconstruction and PCL reconstruction
• Arthroscopic removal of a loose body
• Arthroscopic meniscal repair and menisectomy
• Open reduction and internal fixation of the wrist, elbow and forearm
• Implant removal
• Carpal tunnel release
• De Quervain's release and trigger finger release
• Dupuytren's contracture release and simple fasciotomy
• Injection into a joint
• Minor amputation

Obstetrics and gynaecology

• Dilatation and curettage, and fractional curettage
• Dilatation and evacuation, and suction evacuation of the uterus
• Medical termination of pregnancy with copper T insertion
• Cervical, vulval and vaginal biopsy
• Colposcopy with biopsy
• Gartner cyst excision
• Drainage of a vulval haematoma
• Incision and drainage
• Correction of uterine inversion
• Episiotomy repair and perineal tear repair

Vascular procedures

• Varicose vein treatment
• AV fistula for dialysis access
• Other vascular interventions
• CT and ultrasound guided procedures

Endoscopy: stomach and bowel

• Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy
• Lower gastrointestinal endoscopy, including colonoscopy
• ERCP
• Other endoscopic interventions

Endoscopy: lungs

• Fibreoptic bronchoscopy
• Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS)
• Biopsy
• Other endoscopic interventions

What day care saves you

• Discharge the same day, in most cases
• Small incisions and smaller scars
• Less pain, and fewer complications after the procedure
• Less exposure to anaesthesia
• Walking within a few hours, and a return to normal activity sooner
• Less time in hospital, so less chance of picking up an infection here
• Family with you through the day rather than at visiting hours
• Lower cost than an inpatient stay