Kolkata: The state Health department has asked all the hospitals having isolation wards to constitute a six-member medical board to provide better treatment to the suspected Corona patients.
In view of the growing COVID-19 scare in the state, the department has also instructed three more hospitals to open testing labs to combat any emergency situation.
North Bengal Medical College and Hospital and Midnapore Medical College and Hospital in the districts will have the new facilities so that the samples can be tested there, taking off the burden of National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) and SSKM Hospital in the city, where swab tests are performed.
Another isolation ward will be set up at the School of Tropical Medicine in the city. All the steps have been taken by the Health department as a precautionary measure after one teenager tested positive for the virus. There are also plans to set up two labs each at Malda Medical College and Hospital and Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital.
Senior Health department officials held an emergency meeting at Swasthya Bhawan on Thursday, where it was decided that a 6-member medical board will be formed at all the hospitals and medical colleges where there is an isolation ward.
The medical board will comprise an expert in pediatric medicine, general medicine, a chest expert, an ENT doctor, a health expert and a microbiologist. The Health department may also cancel the leaves of doctors, nurses and paramedical staff in all the government establishments if the situation demands so.
According to the department's instructions, the hospitals will have to set up a separate critical care unit at the isolation ward. There is a strict guideline that Corona suspects cannot be put at the critical care units which are meant for normal patients. Isolation wards must be set up at isolated areas of the hospitals in the districts. The department has also asked all the medical colleges in the state to open fever clinics.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday re-tweeted Kolkata Police Commissioner Anuj Sharma's tweet saluting the fraternity of doctors and health staff for their unselfish and unrelenting endeavour to provide 24x7 service.
Meanwhile, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has started special door-to-door awareness campaign in Borough XI and XII. The move comes as a precautionary measure as the bringer of COVID 19 in the city is a resident of ward 109 of KMC, which is situated under Borough XII.
"We have issued instructions to our health workers to do day to day data collection and fever surveillance in these two boroughs. We have deployed an additional doctor in our health unit of ward 109," said Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh, who is in charge of KMC's Health department.
"We have come across a number of patients with symptoms who have reached Kolkata from other states or countries through the city airport, who had claimed that they had not been screened. So we feel that surveillance should be stronger there," Ghosh added.