Strictly implement referral protocol
No matter how good a hospital is, operations will be disrupted if it accommodates more patients than it can. The state's medical college hospitals are outstanding health institutions providing exemplary treatment to ordinary patients. No hospital can boast of housing so many experienced and expert doctors. However, unlike doctors in private hospitals, these experts don't get the praise they deserve and are the least talked about. Their fame and adept record are getting overshadowed by complaints reaching medical colleges. If three or four times as many patients are admitted to a sixty-bed ward, most of them will have to sleep on the floor. Moreover, a team needs to spend at least ten minutes with a patient for a detailed examination, diagnosis, to discern the treatment method to be adopted.
In Medical colleges, harried doctors are seen running down the wards, inspecting patients. Despite this fast pace, the doctors sometimes miss out few patients queued up in the ward. In the meantime, the authorities will give special consideration to patients who have recommendations from the health department, the minister's office or public representatives. No one can change the deplorable situation unless they control the number of patients coming for treatment in medical college hospitals. The government has taken steps to expand the facilities and treatment in other major hospitals and primary health centres in the districts to reduce the influx of patients to medical colleges.
However, despite the improvement in the facilities of district and taluk hospitals, the number of patients admitted to medical colleges has only seen a spike. One of the main reasons for this is that lower-tier hospitals refer even those with minor ailments to medical colleges without following any criteria. When the incidents of assault and violence against doctors and health workers increased in the meantime, doctors in these hospitals, reluctant to take responsibility, took the easy way out of referring patients to medical colleges.
Better later than never, the health department has stepped up to solve this problem. As part of this, the health department has issued a protocol to ensure better treatment for patients in nearby hospitals. The protocol contains a directive that patients should not be referred to medical colleges unnecessarily without utilising treatment facilities in lower-tier hospitals.
The first phase of the protocol was released for five specialities such as internal medicine, general surgery, gynaecology, paediatrics, and orthopaedics. Minister Veena George has also announced that the protocol for other specialities will be released soon. The protocol classifies various hospitals into five categories based on the treatment facilities available there and states what facilities should be available in each category of institution and what treatments should be provided. It also states what danger signs should be seen in a patient undergoing treatment and to which hospital the patient should be referred first. If the rule is strictly implemented, the number of patients in the medical college can be reduced to a large extent.