CHENNAI: The Health Department is set to constitute a Regional Death Audit Committee in four districts Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchy, and Chennai to audit deaths after surgery to avoid human and other errors, said Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Wednesday. This comes in the wake of the death of a 17-year-old footballer, R Priya, due to medical negligence, on November 15.
The committee will audit avoidable complications and submit a report. Separate monthly surgical audits will be conducted. While death audits are conducted in hospitals, the panel will monitor existing audits, and analyse the special cause of death. The panel will have orthopaedicians, anaesthetists, surgeons and medicine specialists, he added.
The minister was speaking to media after releasing a guidebook titled ‘Safe Surgery-Protocols and Checklists- A Reappraisal’ at a workshop on safe surgical practices. The guidebook will be distributed to surgeons across TN, he said. Around 600 government hospital surgeons attended the event at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital.
The checklist framed based on guidelines by WHO and other organisations on safe surgery had necessary modifications to suit local needs. Government hospitals have been following a WHO checklist, but this is a reappraisal-like training of trainers for the continuity of safe surgery to save lives, officials said.
Subramanian said, 10,000 surgeries are conducted a day across hospitals under the Directorate of Medical Education and the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services. Over 5,000 surgeons are employed in these hospitals. The head of surgeons who attended the workshop will train junior doctors on protocols to be followed during and after the surgery.
Health secretary Dr R Senthilkumar said, deaths will be audited to see if there are any avoidable deaths. Panels will be formed in other districts in the coming days too, said the minster.
‘Quack’ BJP man: Probe ongoing, says Minister
Responding to allegations on social media that a BJP member was a quack, Health Minister Ma Subramanian said, the Deputy Director was inquiring about the matter. Action will be taken if proven to be factual, he added.