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Ghaziabad authorities revamp Covid-19 patient referrals
The Ghaziabad district administration is revamping its system of referring patients to different category of Covid care facilities in order to provide necessary
The Ghaziabad district administration is revamping its system of referring patients to different category of Covid care facilities in order to provide necessary treatment to coronavirus patients on time.
Under the new system, the district administration has appointed three in-charges officer for every hospital in the district, while respective district in-charges have also been appointed for L1, L2 and L3 category hospitals to facilitate speedy referrals. Patients will also be allotted single referral number for easy identification across all hospitals.
Under the state government’s three-tier structure, while L1 hospitals treat with asymptomatic patients, L2 hospitals treat patients with moderate complications, and L3 hospitals deal with patients who require critical care.
“Apart from other aspects related to Covid-19 patients, we are also focussing more on referral issues which can get complicated with allowing home isolation for asymptomatic patients in the state . For now, I have directed that every patient will be assigned a single number for his/her referral to L1, L2 and L3 hospitals which will help his/her identification across all facilities. We have also fixed roles and responsibilities of each in-charge of different hospitals for ensuring smooth process of referrals. The need for referring a patient from L1 hospital to L2 or L3 hospitals or from L2 to L3 hospitals can arise ar any point,” district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said.
“Further, for better referral, we have assigned a mobile number to each Covid facility which will be provided to three in-charges who will work in shift of eight hours each. This mobile number will be used between different facilities to get in touch with other hospital in-charges for referrals. If the calls are not picked up, the chief medical officer will be held responsible. Even if the call is not received, the referral process should not suffer and the hospital in-charge must ensure that patient is referred to an advanced category facility any how,” he added.
The issue of timely referral becomes vital as different facilities are spread across the district. Sahibabad, Niwari and Modinagar each have an L1 category hospital. It has one L2 hospital at Sanjay Naga, while one L3 facility is near old bus-stand. These are facilities apart from the eight private hospitals which provide paid Covid treatment for patients requiring L2 and L3 category care. The paid hotel isolation facility in the district is at Bajaria near Ghaziabad railway junction.
INQUIRY ORDERED INTO WRONG REFERRAL FOR 30-YEAR-OLD PATIENT
The revamping of the referral system comes in the backdrop of the alleged referral made wrongly in the case of a 30-year-old woman admitted to the L1 category hospital in Modinagar. The woman was wrongly referred to the L3 facility in Ghaziabad city on Friday and an inquiry has been initiated in the matter, the DM said.
“The woman, admitted to L1 hospital at Modinagar, complained of respiratory issues and the centre in-charge referred her to L3 hospital. When the chief medical officer came to know about the referral he spoke to the patient and directed her to take some medicines. However, after a couple of hours, she was still referred the L3 facility. When the patient arrived there, she was found having no complications that would require critical care,” an officer of the health department, who did not wish to be named, said.
DM Pandey said that initial prone into the incident has found that the in-charge of the L1 facility made a wrong referral. “ The incident at Modinagar was a one-off incident, but we have revamped our processes to ensure keep the Covid-19 death rate in check,” he said.
Ghaziabad has so far reported 63 Covid-19 related deaths.
In an earlier incident, the district magistrate directed for a magisterial inquiry into the death of a 66-year-old Covid-19 positive woman who was allegedly referred from a private hospital to L3 category Covid hospital in an ambulance which allegedly had no life support equipment. She was found dead by the doctors who examined her in the ambulance when it reached the L3 Covid hospital on June 16.
According to official records, till July 17, the ESIC Hospital at Sahibabad (L1) has a referral rate of 19% while the Divyajyoti Hospital at Niwari (L1) has referral rate of 23% patients.The SRM Covid care centre (L1) at Modinagar has about a 10% referral rate.
Officials said that to facilitate the referrals, Ghaziabad district has 19 dedicated ambulances, including two life-support ambulances, which are running round the clock.
