With the building collapse at the Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam, drawing increased focus on the structural safety of public hospital buildings, some of which are quite ancient, the Health department has decided to initiate safety audit measures in all government hospitals across the State on an emergency basis.
The Director of Health Services, who convened a meeting on Friday, directed officials to conduct stringent safety checks to determine the structural safety of hospital buildings.
Reena K.J. instructed that the details of hospital buildings in all 14 districts be collected and that a report be submitted on Saturday. She asked District Medical Officers (DMOs) to ensure that there are no people, either patients or their companions, in any of the unused/empty hospital buildings. The report will be handed over to the government later.
CM’s assurance
Meanwhile, in his first public statement after the tragedy, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reassured people that the government will take all necessary precautions to ensure that unfortunate and tragic events as what happened at Kottayam are not repeated.
The government will provide suitable and adequate compensation to the family of D. Bindu and that it will offer all support to the family. The government will take forward its efforts to strengthen public health sector with renewed vigour.
Hospital safety plan
Meanwhile, even as the Opposition unleashed a storm, holding Health Minister Veena George responsible for the alleged neglect which led to the building collapse, she pointed out that it was barely a month ago that the Health department and the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) met to formulate a hospital safety plan for the State.
Ms. George said at the meeting a decision had been taken to formulate the safety plan to ensure the safety of all public sector health-care institutions in Kerala — numbering around 1,280 — and thus prevent accidents and mitigate the impact of any possible disaster. The guidelines and frameworks required for the plan have already been prepared at workshops led by experts. Funds for training programmes were allocated at a meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary on June 26 .
The process for putting the plan into action is also being expedited. It is hoped that by August all public health institutions in the State would have their individual hospital safety plans ready. This plan will help all public sector hospitals identify the major disaster risks they could be up against, categorise these, and evolve appropriate solutions
All safety issues in hospitals that require an immediate intervention will be attended to at the local level, while larger issues requiring a broad action plan will be addressed with the help of the respective local self-government institutions. However, for larger safety issues in hospitals which may pose serious disaster risk, a detailed proposal will be prepared and submitted to the State Disaster Mitigation Fund for appropriate allocation.
Ms. George said that it was during the last few months that for the first time in the history of the Health department safety audits and fire audits were conducted in all public hospitals. Safety audits and mock fire drills had also been organised in hospitals with the help of the Police and the Fire departments.
Special guidelines had been issued for hospital safety in the State and Kerala is the first State in the country to have implemented a Code Grey protocol (protocol to alert hospital staff to the presence of a dangerous or combative person in the hospital or to criminal activity somewhere in the hospital).
