HOSPITAL PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE

Ms. V. Vidhya, Asst Professor, Department of MBA, Sankara College of Science and Commerce

 Hospitals and other healthcare facility place a major role in national and local responses to the epidemics and pandemics. After COVID arrival the structure and function of hospital departments are changed. There were never been a separate ward for fever it will be termed as General Medicine ward. Now the scenario has changed it has become mandatory to set up a fever clinic or isolation ward separately for fever patients. The hospital authorities have to be prepared for admitting the fever patients without disturbing the regular patients and utmost care should be taken not to provoke cross infection to other patients.

WHO has given some guidelines for the hospital to adapt themselves from any kind of situation occurs in upcoming years. Here I have given some of the instructions to be followed by the hospital authorities for encountering the pandemic cases.

Fever clinic and COVID test

It is now a usual procedure to take COVID test for the patients who undergo treatment for other health related problems. Every hospital to setup a fever clinic and the health of patients and relatives entering the hospital premises should be assessed accordingly.

 Infection prevention and control

The hospital is a sensitive area where all types of patients will be present and utmost care should be taken that there should not be cross infection. All staffs should be communicated properly that how to encounter a pandemic disaster including non-clinicals staffs. Infection control precautions for triage and flow of patients through fever clinic to other areas should be monitored.

Human resource

In epidemic and pandemic situations, the human resource should be adequate to handle the cases. The clinical and non-clinical staffs should be given proper instructions about their duties and responsibilities as they are the primary people to encounter any pandemic and epidemic situations.

 Screening at Gate

Even after the pandemic situation settles down it will be mandatory to the hospital authorities to screen all their employees, patients and their relatives, and all the persons who enter the hospital for a basic check up at the gate of the hospital. Proper sanitizing and themal checking should be done before anyone enters the hospital.

Logistics at hospital

It is also an essential part of the hospital function as many medicines, surgical items, and stationary items will be procured from outside. The risk becomes high if there are frequent transport issues in the hospital. But one way it is inevitable to run the hospital without any problems. So, procurement department should take necessary actions like providing separate space for goods that is received from other areas, sanitizing their hands after handling the goods, or by wearing gloves to handle it and so on.

Hospital Pharmacy

The high-risk place is where people will gather in the hospital is the pharmacy to get their appropriate medicines. Here the hospital authorities should ensure social distancing between the customers who come to buy medicines as well as in the counters who face the customers for issuing medicines. It will be proper if they have a token system to receive the prescription and issue of the medicines.

Hospital Lab

The flow in the laboratory should be arranged in such a manner that only sample collection will be encountered with the patients and not all sections of the laboratories. Proper instructions should be given to the patients as well as to the lab employees to maintain proper distancing and safety measures to be taken while disseminating the reports to the patients. The hospital authorities can provide the results through online to avoid people gathering in the laboratory

To conclude the hospitals are the susceptible body for different kinds of infections and diseases. So safety measures and preparedness should be high in adverse situations. In todays world people believe that they come to hospital to recover from illness, the hospital authorities should not cross infect them due to their unhygienic practices.