MillenniumPost
Bengal

Real boon: Patients’ grievance redressal cell in state hospitals gets overwhelming response

The grievance redressal mechanism which has become stronger will address the problems that the patients were facing during their treatment at the hospital. Complaint boxes have been set up in the indoor and outdoor of various departments at the hospitals and also in front of the hospital superintendent. 

The step was taken to provide better healthcare services to all the patients. In many cases, it had been observed that the patients were unable to articulate their problems as there was no proper grievance redressal system.

Among the city’s state run hospitals, the new system has already been started at the SSKM Hospital, RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and NRS Medical College and Hospital.

Complaint boxes have been installed at various departments. The patients can share their feedback by filling up a form. There is a committee at each hospital which goes through all the complaints.
After examining the complaints the team submits a report to the state health department giving a detail of the nature of the complaints and will also ensure that patients do not face any problems during treatment.

The service will gradually be extended to all the state-run hospitals in the state. A quality management team will be set up in the district level which will monitor the feedback of the patients.
There will be a quality manager in all the state-run hospitals starting from the sub-divisional hospitals in the districts up to the medical college level.

Patients visiting the outpatient departments (OPD) or indoor departments or their patients will be given a form where they will give a detailed account of their experience in the hospital.

They will have to furnish the details on how long the patients had to wait at the OPD or in indoor departments to consult a doctor. The patients will also be given an option to mention whether they were satisfied with the overall performance of the doctors and the hospital staff members.

The district quality management committee will file a report to the health department officials on the basis of its observations. The main purpose of the new scheme was to fix the accountability of the doctors, nurses and other staff members of the hospitals.

The decision was taken after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had directed the senior health officials to make the grievance redressal mechanism of patients more effective to ensure better health services to patients visiting the district, sub-divisional hospitals and the health centres.

In the meeting, Banerjee had laid great stress on the improving the quality and range of the healthcare services. The senior health department officials believe that after the introducing the new system it will minimise the incidents of patients’ transfer to the city’s medical colleges and hospitals from the districts.

There were many instances in which patients had fallen victims to negligence in the district hospitals and also medical colleges across the state.
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