The district General Hospital is gearing up for the final inspection by the National Accreditation Board for Hospital (NABH) on May 10,11 and 12. It is the first hospital in the Government sector in the State to go in for a quality upgrade so as to receive accreditation by the NABH.
The preliminary assessment was done on January 31 and February 1 in which the hospital authorities were given a list of 64 instances of non-compliance.
These include putting up proper signage, installing power laundry, incomplete case history of patients, passageway to be without hurdles, statutory fire safety, Pollution Control Board's certificate and central sterilisation for equipment, linen used in operation theatres and other procedures.
A central sterilisation system at a cost of Rs. 22 lakh is being installed at the General Hospital that would be completed in a couple of days. The Government has also in principle approved setting up a sewage treatment plant, though the sanction is still awaited.
All the rest of the non-compliances pointed out by NABH inspectors are not a costly affair, said Junaid Rehman, nodal officer for the hospital for NABH certification.
The attitudinal change of the staff is more important in complying with most of the deficiencies pointed out by the inspection team, he said. Some of the changes that have been brought about are introducing a token system in the Out Patient Department and having nurses and nursing assistants in the OPD. Computerisation is being implemented in phases.
It would take about two-three weeks training to co-ordinate all the departments into the system, said Dr. Rehman.
While the ratio of patient to doctors is rather poor for the 743-bed hospital which has only 43 doctors, the deficiency is being met by doctors provided on contract by the National Rural Health Mission.
There is a deficiency of specialty doctors in all the government hospitals and as such the General Hospital is deficient in specialists in General Medicine, where instead of six, there are only three doctors.
Likewise other departments like Ophthalmology and Psychiatry are some of the departments that have less than the required number of specialists.
