A team of 40 doctors from SSKM Hospital will examine patients in Paschim Medinipur’s Keshiary on Wednesday and Thursday as part of an outreach initiative by the hospital to provide speciality services to patients in districts of the state.
Doctors at the hospital said chief minister Mamata Banerjee had recently asked SSKM doctors to visit districts and examine patients.
There will be three such visits every month, said an official of the hospital.
The chief minister has repeatedly spoken against the trend of referring patients to hospitals in Kolkata, which results in medical colleges in the city being overburdened.
“About 40 doctors, including postgraduate trainees, house staff, trainees and teachers from the hospital set out for Keshiary on Tuesday. They will examine patients on Wednesday and Thursday,” said an official of the Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (SSKM Hospital).
Among the 40 doctors are six teachers.
“In the team are doctors from the cardiology, general medicine, paediatrics and dermatology departments,” the official said.
“The patients who are to be examined have been chosen by the district health authorities. The district administration will provide space to our team. Two camps will be set up for the examination of patients,” the official said.
A doctor at SSKM said the chief minister had asked doctors at the hospital during a recent visit to go to rural areas and treat patients.
The nearest medical college from Keshiary is Midnapore Medical College, which does not have a cardiology department.
“The doctors visiting from SSKM are mostly from those departments that Midnapore Medical College lacks,” said an official of the district’s health department.
Field-level health workers in Paschim Medinipur visited homes and prepared a list of 1,300 people who are suffering from chronic problems and have to frequently visit hospitals outside the district for treatment.
These 1,300 people will be examined over the next two days, said an official.
“There will some diagnostic facilities like ECG and basic blood investigations where the visiting team will examine patients,” said a district health department official.
“At SSKM Hospital, we will try to focus on districts like South 24-Parganas, Purulia and Jhargram for the outreach programmes,” said the official.
A doctor at a government hospital told The Telegraph that while the initiative to send a team of doctors from super-specialty-hospitals to districts was good, the government should focus more on taking measures that will improve the services in the medical colleges in districts.
He said the government should create a system of referral so that patients being referred to hospitals in Kolkata do not have to wait for hours for treatment after reaching the hospital concerned.
“The system should ensure that once a patient has been referred, a bed is booked in his orher name in a hospital in Kolkata,” said the doctor.
Conference at St Xavier’s College
The postgraduate and research department of economics at St Xavier’s College (Autonomous) organised a conference on “Imperfect Resource Mobility and Economic Adjustments in a Changing World — Celebrating 50 years of the Specific Factor Model” from February 5 to 7.
The conference was held in honour of the renowned trade theorist, Professor Ronald Winthrop Jones, who died on September 27, 2022.
On February 5, eminent economists — all associated with Jones in some capacity — delivered virtual lectures.
On Day Two, the programme went into offline mode with Rev Dominic Savio, principal of the college, giving the inaugural address.
This was followed by the keynote address by Sugata Marjit.