Falling in line with the directions issued by the Health Ministry, private hospitals in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur districts have put in place stringent measures on their premises to check the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
Visitors are not allowed to call on in-patients and barred from entering the hospital premises. Only one attendant per patient is allowed to stay at the hospital. In order to make this initiative purposeful, in most of the private hospitals inter-changing of caretakers at regular intervals was also not entertained except for critical cases where changeover was inevitable.
Interestingly, the move seems to have elicited a good response from relatives and friends of the patients, said a security personnel of a private hospital in Thanjavur. “Some people who initially insisted that they be allowed to call on their dear ones convalescing at the hospital, later got convinced and went back,” he said.
“As far as outpatients were concerned, attendants are allowed, if necessary,” said S. Marimuthu, president, Indian Medical Association, Thanjavur branch. The patients were allowed to meet the doctors only if they complied with the COVID-19 virus spreading prevention exercises. If such patients were found suffering from high body temperature, they were referred to Thanjavur Medical College hospital immediately, Dr. Marimuthu said.
Tiruvarur
In Tiruvarur district, those seeking medical advice were told to interact with the doctors through video conferencing and only if needed they were given an appointment to meet the doctor, said B. Lakshmanasamy, president, IMA, Tiruvarur branch,
At the hospitals, the staff were posted on duty on alternate days and all those entering the premises were asked to use hand sanitiser.
In both the districts, private hospitals have postponed elective surgeries, Dr. Lakshmanasamy said.
Efforts were also being initiated to comply with the government’s direction to keep 25% of beds for use in case of any exigency that might arise due to COVID-19 pandemic. At some hospitals, some of the non-medical employees such as ward boys, cleaners etc., have failed to turn up for duty from March 25 presumably due to fear of contracting COVID-19 virus.
