20 Sr Nursing Officers appointed; no clarity on patient admission criteria
New Delhi: While the Delhi government on Sunday had ordered that the Capital's 68 private hospitals will now have a Senior Nursing Officer (SNO) each, who is supposed to oversee admission of COVID-19 patients in these facilities, documents accessed by Millennium Post show that so far, 20 of the SNOs to different private hospitals have been appointed.
And as the Delhi government continues appointing more SNOs across the private hospitals here, there is a lack of clarity on the criteria for admitting COVID-19 patients at these private healthcare facilities. Based on at least 10 SNOs, who spoke to this newspaper, different private hospitals are using different yardsticks to decide on admission.
While some SNOs were newly appointed and did not have clarity on what their roles would entail, others said they are not able to oversee much as their hospital is already at full capacity for COVID-19 patients. Some other of these Nursing Officers also said that they were admitting only mild and moderate cases as they do not have the infrastructure to deal with them.
Anjali at BL Kapoor Hospital said, "We are not sure about our roles and what we have to do exactly. I was appointed day before yesterday (June 9) and was told to fill up forms. Prior to this, I was into patient care."
Sushma at Jaipur Golden Hospital echoes the same.
Rohit at Sanjay Gandhi Memorial hospital, who was earlier a Liaison officer for EWS — appointed by the Delhi government said that he looks out for "serious symptoms of COVID-19" in the forms that are given to him and informs the doctor if he or she qualifies for hospitalisation or not. "The final call is with the doctor we only inform the doctor about the symptoms," he said.
"The reception/help desk at these hospitals shall fill up the information in prescribed proforma in respect of each Covid positive patient who is to be admitted, and on the basis of the information, the Sr. Nursing Officer shall take a decision on the admission of the aforesaid patient in the respective private Covid hospital strictly as per the prescribed protocol," reads the Government order.
When asked what happens when the doctor and SNO do not agree on the decision, Rohit said, "So far it has not happened and it is up to him and the patient. Sometimes even if the symptoms are not serious some patients still want to get admitted. We cannot stop that," adds Rohit.
On the other hand, Jyoti Yadav, who is the SNO in Kapil Multispeciality Hospital said that they look out for certain markers. "If the patient has low O2 levels or respiratory symptoms, we recommend admission. We also check for fever above 100 degrees Fahrenheit," Yadav said, adding that patients with mild symptoms are strongly advised to quarantine themselves at home.
The SNO at the Delhi Heart and Lung Institute said that all their 19 COVID-19 beds were already occupied with just one ventilator vacant and hence have not been seeing many patients coming to get admitted.
