Injection and IV Drip at Home in Vasant Kunj

Injection and IV drip at home: what is safe, and what is not

Every week someone calls us and asks for a nurse to come home and "put a drip." Sometimes that is exactly the right thing to do. Sometimes it is unnecessary. And occasionally it is genuinely unsafe.

This is an honest guide to the difference — written so that you can make a good decision even if you never call us.

First, two things worth unlearning

An injection is not stronger than a tablet.

This belief is widespread and it is mostly wrong. For most of the antibiotics prescribed in general practice, the oral form is absorbed so well that the levels reached in the blood are close to what an injection achieves. Injections exist for specific reasons: you are vomiting and cannot keep tablets down, your gut is not absorbing properly, the medicine does not exist in tablet form, or you need very high levels very fast in a serious infection.

If you can swallow and keep down a tablet, and your doctor has offered you one, the tablet is usually the better choice. It carries no risk of an injection-site abscess, no needle, and no risk from an unsafe injection technique.

A drip is not a treatment.

An IV drip is a way of delivering fluid or medicine. It does not, by itself, treat anything. For mild to moderate dehydration — the kind that follows a day of loose motions or a viral fever — oral rehydration solution works as well as a drip and is safer. The World Health Organization has recommended ORS as first-line for exactly this reason for decades.

There is a real place for IV fluids: someone who is vomiting repeatedly, who cannot drink, whose blood pressure is dropping, or who is genuinely unable to maintain hydration by mouth. That is a clinical judgement, and it is one a doctor should make after examining the patient — not one made over the phone because the patient feels weak.

What can reasonably be done at home

Home nursing is genuinely useful, and for the right patient it is far better than a hospital trip. It works well for:

Continuing a course that has already been started safely. You had the first dose in hospital or at a clinic, you tolerated it, and now you need days 2 to 7. This is the most common and most appropriate home injection.

Injections you have had many times before. A vitamin injection you have had before, a repeat painkiller injection, a hormone injection you have been on for months.

Injections under the skin that you or a family member may already be giving. The daily injections a diabetic patient often manages themselves, or a blood-thinning injection after surgery or a clot.

Dressings and wound care. Post-operative dressings, diabetic foot dressings, pressure sore care. This is often the single most valuable thing a home nurse does, and it saves a frail patient a painful journey.

Catheter and tube care in a patient who is bedbound.

Blood samples. We collect at home free of charge, and the report comes back to your doctor here.

IV fluids in a patient a doctor has already assessed and judged to need them, who is otherwise stable.

The common thread: the patient is stable, the medicine is known to suit them, and the decision was made by a doctor who examined them.

What should not be done at home

This is the part most home care advertising leaves out.

A first dose of a medicine the patient has never had before.

This is the most important line in this article. The reason is anaphylaxis — a sudden, severe allergic reaction that can begin within minutes of an injection. It causes swelling of the airway, a drop in blood pressure, and can be fatal. It is rare, it is not predictable from a patient's history, and no test reliably rules it out.

Anaphylaxis is treatable, if the right emergency injection is given immediately and followed by support that may include oxygen and fluids into a vein. In a clinic that is a manageable emergency. In a fourth-floor flat with one nurse and a lift that may or may not be working, it is a much harder situation.

So a first dose of a new antibiotic belongs in a clinic where you can be observed, not in a bedroom — and some families of antibiotic carry more of this risk than others. Once you have taken it safely, the rest of the course can come home.

Infusions with a recognised risk of reaction. Some treatments given into a vein — including the mineral infusions used for anaemia — need resuscitation facilities to hand. These are day-care procedures, not home visits.

Blood and blood products. Hospital only, without exception.

Chemotherapy. Specialist day-care units only.

Anything at all in a patient who is unstable. If someone is breathless, confused, drowsy, has chest pain, has a blood pressure that is falling, or is passing very little urine, they do not need a nurse and a drip. They need to be seen — and possibly admitted. Sending a nurse in that situation delays the thing that would actually help.

On "immunity drips" and IV vitamin infusions

You will have seen these advertised — vitamin drips, "immunity boosters," skin-brightening infusions, IV cocktails delivered to your home or hotel room.

We do not offer these, and we would advise against them.

In a person who eats normally and has no diagnosed deficiency, there is no good evidence that vitamins given into a vein do anything a balanced diet does not. What they reliably do is put a cannula into a vein — which carries a real, if small, risk of infection, of inflammation of the vein, and, in the wrong circumstances, of a serious allergic reaction. You are accepting a genuine risk in exchange for a benefit that has not been demonstrated.

If you have a deficiency proven on a blood test, that is a different matter entirely. It should be treated on the basis of that test and a doctor's advice, at the right dose and by the right route — which is very often by mouth.

A checklist to use before you book anyone

Use this whether you call us or anyone else. If a provider cannot answer these, that tells you something.

1. Is there a valid prescription from a doctor who has actually seen the patient? A nurse cannot decide what to give. If a service offers to "arrange" the medicine without a prescription, stop there.

2. Who exactly is coming? Ask for the qualification. A nurse qualified GNM or B.Sc Nursing is a trained professional. An "attendant" or "technician" is not the same thing, and should not be giving injections.

3. Is this a first dose? If yes, ask to have it at a clinic instead. A good provider will suggest this themselves.

4. Does the nurse carry an emergency kit for a severe allergic reaction, and know how to use it? Anyone giving injections outside a hospital should. Ask directly — and ask what they would do if the patient reacted. A clear, immediate answer tells you a great deal.

5. Can you see the medicine? The vial or ampoule should be sealed, in date, and opened in front of you. The syringe should be single-use and unwrapped in front of you. This is not paranoia — unsafe injection practice, including syringe reuse, remains a documented problem across parts of India.

6. What happens to the needle afterwards? Used needles should be taken away in a proper sharps container, not dropped in your kitchen bin where a domestic helper or a child could be injured.

When to stop thinking about home care and go in

Call us, or go straight to a hospital, if the patient:

• is breathless, or breathing fast

• has chest pain

• is confused, unusually drowsy, or hard to wake

• cannot keep any fluid down at all

• has passed very little urine for a day

• has a fever with a rash that does not fade when you press it, or with a stiff neck

• has a rapidly spreading redness or swelling around a wound

• develops swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or a widespread rash, after any injection — this is an emergency and needs immediate treatment, so call an ambulance or get to a hospital straight away

None of these are situations a home visit solves.

How this works at All Is Well Medical Centre

Who comes to your home. A qualified nurse — GNM or B.Sc Nursing. Not an attendant, and not a technician. The nurse carries an emergency kit for a severe allergic reaction, and takes all used needles away in a proper sharps container.

How it works. You speak to one of our doctors first — at the clinic, or by phone if we already know the patient. If a home visit is the right thing, we send a nurse. If it is not, we will tell you so and explain what to do instead. We would rather lose the booking than send someone who does not need us, or who needs more than we can safely provide at home.

What we ask for. A prescription from a doctor who has examined the patient. If that examination has not happened yet, we will arrange it first.

What we will not do. We do not give a first dose of a new injectable at home — that belongs at the clinic, where you can be observed properly. And we do not provide vitamin or "immunity" drips at all.

When we come

Home visits run seven days a week, 6 AM to midnight — including Sunday.

Please note that this is not the same as the clinic's own hours. The clinic is open Monday to Saturday, 10 AM to 7 PM, and is closed on Sunday. If you need to be seen at the clinic, come within those hours. If you need a nurse at home, the longer window applies.

Areas we cover

Vasant Kunj · Masoodpur · Munirka · Vasant Vihar · RK Puram · Mahipalpur · Mehrauli · Malviya Nagar · Saket · Neb Sarai

If you are just outside these areas, call and ask — we will tell you honestly whether we can cover you.

Charges

Every price below is for the procedure and the nursing visit. Any injectable medicine or IV fluid is charged separately, at cost.

Injections

• IM injection, single — ₹300 at the clinic · ₹500 at home

• IM injections, two in the same visit — ₹400 at the clinic · ₹600 at home

• IV injection — ₹400 at the clinic · ₹600 at home

• IV cannula insertion — ₹300 at the clinic · ₹500 at home

IV drips

• Up to 30 minutes — ₹700 at the clinic · ₹1,000 at home

• Up to 60 minutes — ₹1,000 at the clinic · ₹1,500 at home

• Up to 2 hours — ₹1,500 at the clinic · ₹2,200 at home

Dressings

• Simple dressing, single site — ₹500 at the clinic · ₹700 at home

• Multiple-site or complex dressing — ₹1,000 at the clinic · ₹1,400 at home

Blood sample collection at home — free. The report comes back to your doctor here.

A note on these prices. They are a guide, not a quote. What a patient actually needs varies — a dressing that looks simple over the phone can turn out to be a complex one, a drip may need to run longer, or a nurse may need to make more than one visit in a day. Call us on 8800844793 and describe the situation, and we will tell you what it will cost before anyone comes. We would rather have that conversation first than surprise you afterwards.

Booking

Appointments only. Call 8800844793. Nurse availability is confirmed at the time of booking, so please call rather than assuming someone is free — particularly for same-day requests.

To book an injection at home, you can also go straight to our injection at home service page, which lists what we give and what each one costs.

All Is Well Medical Centre, Shop no. 1, Central Market, Sector B Rd, opposite Vasant Square Mall, Masoodpur, Sector B, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110070.

This article is general information, not a diagnosis or a prescription for any individual. If you are unwell, see a doctor.

Reviewed by Dr. Sushma Vikirna, MBBS, PGDMCH, MBA (Healthcare Admin) — Senior Consultant Physician, 8 September, 2026

Contact

Call 8800844793. Home visits 6 am to midnight.

Phone

8800844793

© 2026. All rights reserved.

Shop no. 1, Central Market, Sector B Rd, opposite Vasant Square Mall, Masoodpur, Sector B, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, Delhi 110070

ADDRESS

All is well medical centre

10 AM - 7 PM

Mon-SAT