Noida hospitals asked to inform Covid patients’ kin daily about health condition

The Gautam Buddh Nagar administration on Wednesday directed all hospitals, including private facilities, to set up helpdesks that will update families of Covid-19 patients about their health condition daily and in “simple” language, according to an official order.

Every hospital has to set up a helpdesk with adequate staff that has to be provided two phones — one only for incoming calls and the other only for outgoing calls — which will be used to communicate with families or attendants of coronavirus patients, the order stated.

Failure to comply with the order will result in action under the National Disaster Management Act (NDMA) against the hospital concerned, District Magistrate Suhas L Y warned, as he directed his administration to form a special team which will conduct random checks of these helpdesks.

“Every hospital has to set up a help desk with an adequate number of staff and will have to arrange two telephones – one for outgoing calls only and the other for incoming calls only. Families or attendants of COVID patients may call or message on one number to enquire about the health condition of their patients and they should be informed about it in simple language,” Suhas stated in the order, effective immediately.

“The helpdesk will also provide a daily update to the additional district magistrate (Finance and Revenue) about the number of outgoing calls made during a day to patients’ families or attendants. They will also provide details like name of patient, attendant or family persons’ name and contact number, etc,” he said.

These details will be used by the ADM (F&R) to carry out random verification of these helpdesks. The ADM will form a special team for this work, the DM added.

He said the special team will randomly call up the family or attendants of the patient to confirm if they got health updates from the hospital concerned or not.

“If it is found during checking that any data given to the ADM is incorrect or that any family or attendant is not informed about the health update of their patient, then action will be taken against such hospital under the NDMA,” he warned.