New system in place for better care of patients

In order to improve healthcare in government hospitals, the AAP government has issued a series of guidelines, including deputing of patient welfare officers to guide and assist patients during consultation and admission process. Also, after reports suggested that many IV fluid stands were in a rusted condition, the government directed that the same be repaired and repainted with immediate effect and failure to do so would lead to strict action.

Instructions have also been issued that pregnant women in general emergency should not be made to go from one room to another. The hospitals have been directed to stabilise pregnant women in main emergency before moving them on stretchers or wheel-chairs to other places. The hospitals have also been directed to provide clean bedsheets to all patients and ensure mattresses are put on all the stretchers.

In a recent order issued by the director-general of health services, Tarun Seem, the AAP government has made it mandatory for all doctors attending to indoor patients to put their notes on the patients’ casesheets along with their stamp.

The doctors have also been directed to wear white coats with their names pinned on it. Nurses too have been directed to wear their uniform with their names pinned visibly during duty hours.

The teams posted in each ward have been instructed to daily assemble in a common area in the ward in order to introduce and familiarise themselves with each other so as to remember names and other important details.

All the consulting doctors on duty have been told to prominently display their name and mobile numbers on a poster-size sheet in the main duty room, nursing stations and corridors of all wards.

The order says: “All the staff, including nurses and nursing orderlies, must be available at their duty place at the start of their shifts. All other preparations like changing of uniform, marking of attendance etc. must be completed before the beginning of their respective shifts.”

All the doctors have been told that soon after they reach the hospital, they should locate and identify security guards on duty so that they can be summoned as and when required. “Mapping and rationalisation of security guards posted in various areas of the hospitals must be critically undertaken for appropriate and judicious security cover to all areas of the hospital in all shifts,” according to the order.

The order has made it clear that nursing orderlies and other support staff like sweepers should not sit in pantry or any other secret locations.

“Rather, they must be visibly waiting in the ward for assignments or tasks assigned by the doctors and nursing staff as part of the healthcare team.”