The Health Department is taking measures to strengthen security measures on the campuses of government healthcare facilities to ensure a safe working environment for doctors and healthcare workers in Tamil Nadu. While joint security audits have been conducted along with the police department, some key security aspects such as ensuring that existing CCTV cameras were functional and regulating timing of visitors’ entry into in-patient wards were being looked at.
“We have already held three rounds of discussions with the heads of departments - directors of public health and preventive medicine, medical education and medical and rural health services. Initially, we had a meeting at the level of the Chief Secretary along with the Director General of Police and Home Secretary. We had several discussion points during the meeting,” Health Secretary Supriya Sahu said.
Following this, instructions were issued to conduct joint security audits in all medical college hospitals and government hospitals with officials from the police and health departments to assess the current security arrangements and to propose measures to improve the overall security in the institutions. The Health Secretary pointed out that these district-level security audits, in which the respective Superintendents of Police along with the joint director/deputy director/deans of each facility participated, were completed.
Some key aspects including the number of CCTV cameras installed at the health facilities and whether they are operational or not, areas where better lighting could be provided, security at entrances and availability of guards and timing of visitors entry into in-patient wards to keep a tab on movement of people were looked at.
The institutions were also told to constitute two committees - Hospital Security Committee and Violence Prevention Committee - to strategise and implement appropriate security measures. The former may be headed by deans, while the latter may be headed by senior doctors. Inclusion of members from the patient welfare society into these committees may also be considered.
“Our health institutions have quite well-positioned facilities. We want to make sure that the existing CCTV cameras are made functional. We have asked deans and officials to set up a control room to ensure that there is continuous monitoring,” Ms. Sahu said.
Health authorities were also told to hold joint meetings with police officials every month to make sure that adequate security arrangements are in place.
