Health Minister T. Harish Rao has underlined the need for improving sanitation conditions in government hospitals.
He wanted the hospitals to display diet menu comprising the details of diet that would be provided to patients thrice a day. The Minister reviewed the functioning of State-run hospitals with senior officials on Sunday. He wanted the officials concerned to ensure that proper sanitation was maintained within the hospitals as well as places abutting them.
The government was implementing new sanitation and diet policies in the hospitals and had accordingly enhanced the sanitation charges for each bed from ₹5,000 to ₹7,500 while diet charges had been doubled to ₹80 from ₹40. He wanted steps to be initiated to see that bills pertaining to sanitation and diet contracts as well as salaries of personnel engaged in the works were paid in time.
“Hospital superintendents will be held responsible in the event of delays in payment of bills or salaries,” he warned, and suggested that the supervision of sanitation and diet related aspects should be handed over to a State-level medical officer for effective implementation.
The Minister said sanitation contracts for 152 out of the 171 hospitals had been finalised so far and contractual agreements with respect to 19 other hospitals would be completed soon. Diet contracts had been finalised for 162 hospitals while contracts for six hospitals could not be finalised on account of court cases. He expressed concern that there was mismatch in the number of specialists in the Vaidya Vidhana Parishad hospitals in that there were more doctors in some institutions while there was shortage in some others.
Steps should be taken to ensure that specialist doctors are sent on deputation to hospitals where there was need, in order to ensure that there was no interruption in services to patients. Steps should also be taken to ensure infection control units in all hospitals and review meetings on the maintenance of operation theatres should be conducted on a weekly basis. Operation theatres should be sterilised on a regular basis and the hospital authorities concerned should purchase as many surgical kits as needed so that services to patients were not impacted. “There is no dearth of funds,” he said.
Mr Harish Rao directed the officials concerned to regularly inspect the conditions in district hospitals and said steps should be taken to immediately respond whenever the need arose. He also cautioned the medical staff against rude behaviour towards patients and their attendants asserting that action would be initiated against those who went against the instructions as also against those found guilty of demanding money from patients or their attendants.
Steps should be taken to ensure that patients who were being discharged from hospitals were provided medicines prescribed by the doctors free of cost till the duration mentioned in the prescription.
