West Bengal asks private hospitals to get help from non-Covid specialists for crisis period

KOLKATA: The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory commission (WBCERC) has appealed to private hospitals to draw up lists of specialists, like eye, ENT, skin and surgery, who are normally not involved in treatment of Covid patients. These doctors, the commission felt, can help hospitals tide over the manpower crisis in the event of exigencies during Dura Puja.

“It is mainly doctors from specialties, like medicine, pulmonology and critical care, who are tending to Covid patients.Private hospitals can draw up lists of their doctors from other specialties who are not engaged in Covid treatment. If required, these doctors can supplement the manpower in Covid wards of their respective hospitals in case of a crisis during the festival,” said Justice (retired) Ashim Kumar Banerjee, chairman of the panel.
In addition to medicine, pulmonary and critical care specialists, hospitals said that nephrologists, cardiologists and neurologists, too, were involved in treatment of critical Covid patients. “This is a justified decision. In fact, we have already drawn up a list of doctors from specialities apart from the six currently involved in Covid treatment. This decision by the honourable chairperson will strengthen our hand further,” said Sudipta Mitra, CEO, Peerless Hospital.
In anticipation of the rising Covid graph, the Peerless managing director came out with a circular asking doctors not to take any leave till the end of October. “While a section of doctors is overburdened with work taking care of Covid patients, another section are still resorting to only online consultation. The move by the health commission is a very good one. If the commission issues an advisory, it will help hospital administrators to implement it with ease,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO, Belle Vue Clinic, which is currently running 160 Covid beds with full occupancy.
“Since ours is a multispecialty hospital, we have a good number of doctors from all specialties. We will definitely look into preparing a list of those doctors who are not involved in Covid treatment at present,” said a source at CMRI.
The commission also wants to prepare a data bank of recovered Covid patients who are fit and healthy. “While such patients can help if the need for plasma donation arises, the hospitals can request them for voluntary services during the festival for work suited for them,” added justice Banerjee.
The health panel on Wednesday penalized CMRI Rs 25,000 after a complaint of burn mark on the leg of patient who underwent fracture surgery, which was successful. The commission also asked AMRI Hospitals Salt Lake to pay Rs 91,000 to a patient who had two surgeries, the latter being a correctional one for a post-surgery infection. Both hospitals said they are yet to get a written communication of the directive and they will respond once they get a copy of the order.
The commission also asked Majumdar Millennium Nursing Home in Kalyani to refund Rs 8,000 as discount to a patient’s family, imposed a penalty of Rs 10,000 on Health World Hospital in Durgapur for furnishing the report of a different patient while the complaint against the hospital was by the family of another patient. Shree Jain hospital has been asked to withdraw a police complaint of hospital ransacking lodged against the family of a patient who died there.