HYDERABAD: Telangana has taken a strong stance to curtail excessive and unnecessary C-section deliveries across the State.
The State has deployed a two-pronged approach where not only will they offer incentives on normal delivery to government hospital staff, but will also suspend registrations of private nursing hospitals that report high C-section rates.
An incentive of Rs 3,000 is likely for government hospital staff involved in normal delivery. At the same time the State will go after the nexus of private nursing homes and hospitals making huge money from C-sections.
Speaking to media persons on Friday, the Health Minister T Harish Rao said that from the Health Department's analysis show that the issue of C-section deliveries is predominant in North Telangana, where some nursing homes have conducted 99 per cent of all deliveries using C-Section procedure.
On the data of hospitals in Mahbubnagar and Zaheerabad show that nearly 70 to 80 per cent of the deliveries were normal. In order to tackle the issue, the District Collectors and District Medical Officers have been directed to specifically hold each and every hospital accountable to reduce the number of C-section deliveries.
The Health Department is contemplating sweeping administrative changes in order to streamline multiple service delivery points. According to the Minister, the idea is to make government hospitals the best in the country and the first option for people of Telangana.
"This can be achieved by improving the conditions in sanitation, medicines, doctor availability and diet in government hospitals. Some of the sweeping changes include CCTV cameras installation at PHCs to check staff presence is already underway," he said.
All these CCTV's would be available for monitoring to the Minister, Director of Health, Director of Medical Education etc with a scope of direct interaction from head office to individual PHC's as well. Another crucial step the department will follow is to check the presence of professors and doctors in hospitals.
Each doctor will be individually monitoring for the number of patients they treat. The decision was taken after it was found that some professors at Gandhi Hospital had not conducted a single operation over the last 20 years.
The government is also considering to introduce a clause in the new recruitment policy that will restrict government hospital doctors from private practice.