BHUBANESWAR: As Odisha Government turned its focus to set up exclusive Covid-19 care units across the State, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been issued for both public and private hospitals for management of novel coronavirus patients. The Covid-only health facilities will have a well-functioning Incident Management System (IMS) for effective management of emergency. Only a standalone building modified to a hospital having isolated small units for 20 to 30 beds will be allowed.
The building must have separate entry and exit point besides isolated chambers for the healthcare providers, central sterilisation service department, internal pharmacy and waste disposal mechanism. Hospitals setting up such units will have to be ready to manage surge capacity to meet an increased demand for clinical care. Patients should be placed in adequately ventilated single rooms. When single rooms are not available, patients suspected of having Covid-19 should be grouped together to avoid mixing of suspected and confirmed cases.
There will be one-metre distance between beds regardless of whether patients are suspected of having Covid-19. As per guidelines, the hospitals should have an efficient and accurate triage system along with an organised in-patient management strategy to ensure adequate treatment of acute respiratory infection. A triage protocol aimed at ensuring that cases of acute respiratory infection are recognised needs to be put in place. Since health-care workers recognising and immediately reporting unusual health events (clusters of cases and atypical clinical presentations) occurring in health-care facilities are the corner stone of the early warning function, hospitals have been asked to properly train them before deployment for management of cases.
“In addition to serving the early warning function, they have to be careful in maintaining data as the laboratory and epidemiological data obtained through systematic collection and analysis will allow the public health authorities to monitor the progression of Covid cases and inform interventions on those at the highest risk of severe outcome,” the SOP mentioned. As per the national health policy and directives, the hospitals will have to promote the reporting of unusual health events by healthcare workers by establishing communication channels and procedures within the hospital and with public health authorities.
HC direction on adequate specialists
Cuttack: Orissa High Court on Monday expressed concern over inadequacy in medical care without specialised doctors in hospitals, both government and private in the State, particularly during Covid-19 pandemic. Registering suo motu a PIL on the “apprehended lapses” the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Sanju Panda and Justice Biswanath Rath directed the Health Secretary, other senior officers including DMET and other government committees “to issue direction to all hospitals - government and private - from which the Government is taking medical help to ensure availability of specialised doctors”.While directing for providing doctors with personal protection equipment (PPE), the bench also ordered that no patient should be turned away without getting appropriate medical care.
The bench also directed police department to ensure that patients should not be unnecessarily detained on their way to hospital. While issuing the direction the bench observed: “It can be easily assumed that many patients having serious health issues must be expecting treatment both as indoor and outdoor patients. Many patients must be in need of specialized treatment.
Thus specialist and experienced doctors need to be available in both government and private hospitals to promptly attend patients reaching hospitals”. “Further leave to such doctors, be curtailed to cases of extreme emergency. The said doctors should be provided with PPE for their protection against COVID-19 infection for the reason that the doctors have no scope to know if patient attended by him is already affected by coronavirus”, the bench said in the order.