BHUBANESWAR: As the State is witnessing a quantum jump in daily Covid-19 cases and over 7,700 patients currently undergoing treatment at both private and government hospitals, the failure of Odisha government to put a patient management system in place to enable family members get information on the patients has drawn criticism from the BJP.
It has been more than two weeks, a delegation of the BJP met Bhubaneswar Municipal Commissioner-cum-nodal officer for Covid management Prem Chandra Choudhury and requested him to set up a help desk with a toll free number in each of the Covid hospitals of the State to provide regular updates about health condition of patients under treatment.
“The Commissioner assured us that it will be done but he failed to keep his promise even after 15 days,” said State BJP spokesperson Dilip Mohanty. Mohanty, who has been assigned the job by the party to coordinate with the BMC and health authorities for admission of critical Covid patients in need of urgent attention, said his party is flooded with calls from family members and relatives of patients not being able to access any information about their health conditions.
In the first wave of the pandemic last year, the government had directed all the dedicated Covid hospitals to set up help desk with a dedicated telephone number, preferably a toll free number. The same practice should continue as the Covid hospitals are out of bound of the patients’ relatives, he said.
He said the party had also suggested to the government to put an electronic display board either outside the Covid hospitals or at a public place which will be easily accessible for providing updates on the health parameters such as oxygen saturation, pulse rate, blood pressure, among others, from a remote location.
Last year, the government had directed hospitals to set up a dedicated conference room outside of the Covid facility with the provision of TV and cameras which can be connected with CCTVs installed inside the facilities so that the attendants can see patients and talk to them.
The government had warned of action against the hospitals if they fail to set up the help desk and do not attend to calls. As the compliance of the help desk is directly related to the overall satisfaction of patients as well as attendants, non-compliance will be seriously viewed. But nothing of that sort is done this time though the Covid situation is worse than that of last year, he said.