Kolkata, Sept 9 (IANS): West Bengal health department has made patients’ referral rules stricter for state-run medical entities, in an attempt to eliminate the age-old menace of referring even the most critical patients coming for admissions to other hospitals.
Insiders from the state health department said that after reviewing the critical care units of all the state-run medical establishments, the department had issued a set of fresh guidelines as regards to patients’ referrals.
“The first and most important guideline is that no state-run medical establishment should immediately refer any critical patients to other hospitals. The medical establishment concerned should first stabilize the condition of the critical patient and then only refer that patient to any other hospital and that too if absolutely necessary,” said a state health department official.
The second important guideline on patients’ referral, according to the official, is the detailed procedure for referral on a case-to-case basis.
“Before referring a critical patient elsewhere, the critical care unit of the hospital should inform the deputy superintendent or the assistant superintendent of the hospital about the referral decision. The deputy superintendent or the assistant superintendent will then contact the integrated control room at Swasthya Bhavan, the state health department headquarters in Kolkata. It should be ensured that there is a critical care bed at the place where the referral is being made,” the health department official.
At the same time, he said, such referrals should be restricted in extreme emergency cases where the patients’ family insist on such referrals.
According to him, besides eliminating the age-old disease of unnecessary referrals, the new guidelines will also ensure maximum utilization of critical care units in all state-run medical establishments in the state.
Recently, the state health department reviewed its Critical Care Management Information System (CCMIS), where details of all the critical care units in all state-run medical establishments need to be uploaded.
Following the review of the portal, it came to the notice of the state health department that the existing critical care unit infrastructure in many state-rune medical establishments were not utilized up to the optimum level.
In such a situation, the state health department official said, the new and stricter referral guidelines had been issued.
“Guidelines have also been set for the critical care units in all state-run medical establishments. Review meetings will have to be held every week to review the condition of the critical care units of all medical establishments. Each critical care unit or intensive care unit will have a specialist doctor with a postgraduate degree,” said the department officials.
At the same time, he added that there had been frequent cases of infection spreading from critical care units.
The health department has set specific ‘guidelines’ to prevent it, where the “infection control nurse” of each hospital has been instructed to regularly monitor the infection control status in CCUs.
IANS
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