Kerala ramps up pre-monsoon health preparedness to combat infectious diseases

With seasonal outbreaks of infectious diseases expected to rise, the Kerala government has directed the Health authorities to ensure that pre-monsoon preparedness activities are carried out without any disruptions, Health Minister K. Muraleedharan said on Monday.

The Director of Health Services (DHS) and the Director of Medical Education (DME) have been asked to ensure that all hospitals have necessary stocks of medicines, equipment and other necessary consumables so that patients crowding public hospitals are not left in the lurch, he said.

He was speaking at a Meet the Press programme arranged by the Press Club, Thiruvananthapuram.

Mr. Muraleedharan said that the government medical college hospitals have been asked to make necessary arrangements so that “systemic failures” do not result in the disruption of surgeries in hospitals. All hospitals have also been directed to follow surgical protocols strictly, he added.

The Health Minister has also asked all hospital authorities to maintain strict hygiene and infection control practices in hospitals so that hospitals do not become sources of infection. Mr. Muraleedharan said that patients having to lie down on the floor in public hospitals is “not an acceptable situation” and that the government would make necessary arrangements so that hospitals do not need to accommodate patients on the floor.

Treatment facilities in primary health centres would be augmented so that unnecessary referrals to MCHs which result in overcrowding at tertiary level can be avoided.

New posts

The government has taken a decision to create new posts of doctors and ancillary staff wherever necessary and to resort to redeployment of staff as required so that the staff requirement in all institutions are evened out, he said.

“It is the UDF‘s policy to start new medical colleges and the government intends to resume work on the two medical colleges – at Haripad and Thiruvananthapuram – the proposals for which the previous government had set aside,” he said. There are also other medical colleges such as the one at Mananthavady in Wayanad, where development was impossible because about 20 acres of forest land surrounded the hospital, he added.

“The selection of the location for the Wayanad medical college was done in an unscientific manner and we will need the cooperation of the Forest department if the expansion work is to move forward,” Mr. Muraleedharan said.

AIIMS demand

He said the State’s “long-standing and legitimate” demand for an All India Institute of Medical Sciences-like institution would be pushed forward.

“The State government will inform the Centre that it was not particular about the location of AIIMS in Kerala and that whichever area was deemed suitable for AIIMS by the Centre will be accepted by the State government. The previous government had pushed the State’s case for AIIMS but it was adamant on a particular location it had favoured,” Mr. Muraleedharan pointed out.

Regarding the complaint of medical negligence raised by a patient against the Kozhenchery district hospital, Mr. Muraleedharan said he had received a report from the DMO, which was “vague” on how the incident could have occurred or who could have been responsible.

The complaint had been raised by a 62-year-old woman, who alleged that she had to undergo a surgery recently to remove a part of a needle that had broken off and was retained in her, when she was administered an injection at the Kozhenchery hospital in 2023.

Mr. Muraleedharan said he was not prepared to accept the DMO’s report “at face value” and that he had sought further details on the incident.