Hardly four days after withdrawing their prolonged 17-day fast-unto-death at Esplanade demanding justice for the rape and murder of a woman postgraduate trainee doctor at R G Kar Medical College Hospital on 9 August, doctors under the banner of West Bengal Junior doctors’ Front (WBJDF) on Friday sent an email to the state chief secretary Manoj Pant.
It pertains to six-point suggestions to the government on how to improve state-run healthcare services.
The mail was sent to Mr Pant on the intervening night of Thursday-Friday when the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee was at the secretariat, Nabanna to monitor cyclone developments.
The WBJDF in its six-point suggestions has focused on issues mainly immediate implementation of centralised indoor bed monitoring in government hospitals, frequent updates related to availability of beds, critical deficiencies in the centralised referral system of patients seeking admissions to state healthcare facilities staring from primary, secondary and tertiary level hospitals and display boards mentioning availability of beds for public awareness.
“The suggestions we are providing must be viewed as essential measures, not mere recommendations, to facilitate the prompt and proper implementation of a central real-time digitised bed vacancy monitoring system and a robust referral process. Both are indispensable to improve the operation efficiency of healthcare infrastructure in the state,” the WBJDF mail stated.
“It is concerning that despite assurance from the government the central real-time digitalised bed vacancy monitoring system remains unimplemented, even at the pilot level. This system is critical to the functioning of any referral process. Without real-time, centralised data on bed availability, referral systems can’t be operated efficiently. We demand that the digitalised bed monitoring system be implemented within one month from now,” one of the suggestions stated.
“To prevent malpractice, including the tout system, corruptions and associated threat cultures, the bed vacancy status must be updated hourly in all hospitals. This is essential to streamline government healthcare services and prevent avoidable delays in patient care,” one junior doctor said.
The junior doctors also urged Mr Pant to hold a meeting of the state-level task force to discuss issues related to public healthcare developments in the state.
The state government has already formed an 11-member task force, headed by the chief secretary.