Government hospitals treating dengue and malaria patients are setting up monitoring committees headed by the respective medical superintendents to ensure proper treatment.
The move follows a directive from the state health department, officials said.
“Last year, many dengue patients, including a number of senior doctors, had died allegedly because of negligence of the hospital administration. So this year the department has asked government hospitals treating dengue and malaria patients to set up monitoring committees to ensure there are no lapses in the treatment,” an official in the health department said.
The committee at each hospital will be headed by the medical superintendent of that hospital.
The committee will include doctors, nurses and lab technicians. Each committee will have a WhatsApp group
where the members will keep posting about the condition of the patients.
“It is not a feasible idea to send separate teams from Swasthya Bhavan to monitor the treatment of dengue and malaria patients at different medical colleges and hospitals. We tried last year. Let a committee from within the healthcare facility do this job,” said another official in the health department.
“The team members will be accountable for alleged lapses.”
Last year, the assistant superintendent of Beleghata Infectious Disease Hospital, Anirban Hazra, 42, had died after contracting dengue. The hospital authorities set up an internal monitoring committee on Saturday.
The hospital admitted 10 dengue patients over the past week or so, till Sunday. The committee’s task is to ensure that apart from those admitted, doctors at the hospital’s fever clinic do not show any negligence in advising hospital admission.
“The criteria has been clearly spelt out and these have been put up at the outdoor clinic and in the Emergency ward for on-duty doctors. The committee members will be responsible for everything related to dengue and malaria treatment, including tests and functioning of the
testing labs,” said Kausik Chaudhuri, nodal officer of the dengue monitoring committee of Beleghata ID Hospital.
Over 3,000 dengue cases have been reported in Bengal since January. Most of the cases were detected in pockets in and around Kolkata.
A 45-year-old woman from Thakurpukur died on Friday at the Beleghata ID Hospital after contracting dengue.
“The WhatsApp group will have information about the status of critically ill patients admitted to the fever ward in the hospital. So doctors and nurses on different shifts would be aware and no one can claim to be ignorant,” said Himadri Chakrabarty, a senior health department official, who trains doctors at hospitals in North 24-Parganas in the detection and treatment of dengue patients.