By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: With reports of violation of COVID-19 guidelines by some leading Private Hospitals and Clinic , the Odisha Health and Family Welfare Departmet was on Sunday issued
issued guidelines for general Hospitals and Nursing Homes.The State Government move came following reports from Kar Clinic and Sunshine Hospital here , that both , and few other violating the COVID-19 guidelines.
As per the guidelines issued, when a COVID-19 case is detected in the hospital, the facility should notify the Health Department immediately.The patient must be segregated to an isolated area, preferably a single cabin with attached toilet. If patient is critically ill in ICU, other patients in the room may be shifted to another section of the same building. These patients will be considered as contacts and will be followed for COVID-19 symptoms for fourteen days.
Other patients in the hospital should be shifted to other section of the hospital and to be kept under observation. Aggressive disinfection protocol must be started in the same room and also the same floor. The patients in other cabins or wards must be shifted to other isolated areas of the hospital or to other hospitals.
All healthcare and outsourcing personnel who had history of contact with the patients or deployed in the same block of the hospital must be identified, reported, quarantined and monitored for 14 days. For the staffers likely to be non-compliant or for whom home quarantine is not possible, the hospital authorities will be responsible for keeping them under quarantine and monitoring under their arrangement.
All relatives and contacts must be sensitized on self monitoring, quarantine and standard precautionary measure, including hand-washing and social distancing. The hospital should practice aggressive visitor restriction and also should enforce sick leave policy in the facilities.
No further admission to this section of hospital is allowed unless being a confirmed COVID -19 case and the hospital is prepared to convert the section into COVID-19 care unit.
Unless the section is independent and isolated, the hospital should stop admitting any cases except during life threatening emergency who may be admitted on compassionate ground. This must be done only with prior information and explanation to the attendants of the patient.
After discharge of the patient, the isolation room, all clinical areas and laboratory, where the patient had visited along with accessories, equipment, injection and dressing trolleys etc. must be disinfected as per the NCDC guidelines, before allowing other patient to be admitted. If the area of the hospital is not independent, the hospital must take up aggressive disinfection of the whole hospital before allowing other patients for admission.Government reserves the right to cancel the registration of the hospital, in case of any violation of the SOP or to initiate any legal action as deemed proper.
After Kar Clinic, which hit the headlines for housing the 3rd COVID-19 positive case, Sunshine Hospital owned by Dr AV Gurava Reddy, located near Laxmi Sagar Square on Cuttack-Puri Road in Bhubaneswar, had also come under scanner for not following COVID-19 guidelines
Sources said the Hospital management had severely violated the guidelines of State Health and Family Welfare Department on COVID-19. Hospital authorities were even not providing mask to it its staffs and employees.
“With the Health and Family Welfare Department issuing fresh guidelines to all doctors, clinics and hospitals which must be strictly followed, the management of Sunshine Hospital were turned red faced as their illegal work will be stopped,” sources said.
In spite of repeated advisory, sources said Sunshine Hospital here had reportedly not complying with the COVID 19 Regulations. Government urges it to act responsibly and follow the Regulations while treating patients with flu-like symptoms. Non-compliance shall be viewed seriously, it said.
The Sunshine Hospital Group is running Hospitals at Gachibowli, Secunderabad and Karimnagar in Telegana and Bhubaneswar in Odisha. “We demand a raid by State Health and Family Welfare Department to ascertain whether Sunshine Hospital following COVID-19 guidelines or not,” added a local in Bhubaneswar.
The authorities in Odisha have vamped up measures to prevent community transmission of coronavirus after the state recorded its third positive case. Officials have tightened the implementation of the 21-day lockdown which came into effect across the country on March 25.
