Telangana State health secretaries since 2017 turn ceremonial heads?

Hyderabad: Are successive State health secretaries acting like ceremonial heads and won't act unless the chief minister, chief secretary or the courts remind them of their job? If the goings-on are of any indication, the State health administration has pulled up its socks only after the courts' intervention and the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's intervention to step up and gear up the fight against Covid in the second wave as the deadly coronavirus intensified its ugly pangs more infectiously in the State.

Speaking to The Hans India, sources in the Telangana Vaidya Vidhana Parishad (TVVP) says, the State might be well prepared, if not, at least in a better position to minimise the adversities and challenges posed by the second wave, had the health administration implemented its own plan of action of State Quality Assurance (SQA) policy planning.

The SQA has come into effect from December 1, 2017, a comprehensive action for providing quality health care services across the TVV hospitals in the State.

"The SQA has a State Level Committee (SLC) as well as District Level Committees (DLCs). The main objective of it was Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Improvement (QI) to provide the highest possible level of health services to all people in Telangana through the delivery of promotive, preventive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative health services at all levels."

Accordingly, it has come up with a 56-page Quality Improvement Manual (QIM) has come into force three years ago. And, the programme, which was brought into force in line with the guidelines of the National Health Mission (NHM) to provide quality health care services across the health facilities.

Comprehensively it covers quality assurance of input, process and outcome.

The plan of action claims that it has been developed by the State Quality Assurance Team and implemented by various committees, DQAM and other personnel.

Quality assurance and continuous monitoring programme covering: accident and emergency, nutritional rehabilitation centre (NRC), laboratory services, outdoor department, operation theatre, radiology and USG, labour room, postpartum unit, pharmacy, maternity ward, intensive care unit, auxiliary services, paediatric ward, indoor patient department, mortuary, sick newborn care unit (SNCU), blood bank and general administration.

A senior district health official from Jayashankar-Bhupalapally district said that the action plan, its implementation and reporting structure was comprehensive even non-availability of let alone an oxygen cylinder even non-availability of a stool, an instrument at the TVV hospital could be known to the highest state office in just one day's gap.

In the case of unexpected and emergencies of safety and security of all the stakeholders of the hospitals, the officials come to know about it within less than 6 to 12 hours, indicated the issue-reporting time specified by the action plan.

But, there is hardly any serious attention paid by the top bosses including the chairman of the SLC in its implementation and continuous performance review. And, "while success rates of its implementation vary depending on the staff and officials implementing it, definitely, it keeps the staff in the public health care sector agile and active at all levels," said a TVVP official.

But, the sorry state of affairs is such that people might be shocked to see the laxity on the part of the TVVP amidst the second wave of the corona. Its TVVP official website still highlights the availability of beds across the district hospitals as of January 23.