To ensure better healthcare facilities to the patients at the government hospitals, the state government has decided to strengthen the grievance redressal mechanism.One of the main objectives of the scheme was to minimise the incidents of transfer of patients from one government hospital to the other, both in the city and the districts.
Senior Health department officials said that the system has already been put in place in various state-run hospitals while in many others, the project is underway.
The new system has been able to cut down the rate of the incidents of patients' referral and also fix the responsibility of doctors and medical staff in the hospitals.
There were many instances in which the patients had fallen victims of negligence in the district hospitals.
Even the students could not raise the matter with the Health department officials as the patients' redressal mechanism would not function properly.
A quality management team is being 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 to ensure that the system is properly followed.
Patients visiting the Outpatient Departments (OPD) or indoor departments or their patients have to fill up 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. There will be another option where the patients can also mention whether they were satisfied with the overall performance of the doctors and the hospital staff members.
The district quality management committee on the basis of its observation will file a report to the Health department officials.
The decision was taken by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who wanted to fix the accountability of doctors, nursing and other staff members in the hospital so that quality treatment can be delivered to the patients at the state-run hospitals even in the far off districts.
She also wanted 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.
It may mentioned, that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had taken a host of projects to revamp the health infrastructure in the state-run hospitals.
A great deal of work has been done to ensure health care facilities for newborns and children. Mother and Child hub has come up at Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.
The state Health department often receives complaints that some doctors in the government establishments are not serious enough.
The move was initiated so that the health department can get feedback of the patients on the basis of which they could get know the name of the doctors who are performing their duties sincerely.