2 TN hospitals voted the best in India for workplace safety amid COVID-19
Tamil Nadu has the best ‘large’ and ‘very large’ hospitals in the country in worker and workplace safety while treating patients affected by COVID-19.
While the Omandurar Government Medical College and Hospital (OGMCH) in Chennai has been awarded the best ‘large hospital’ (300 to 600 beds) in the country for the safety of workers amid the pandemic, the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, has been voted the best in the ‘very large’ category (more than 600 beds).
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The Omandurar Government Medical College and Hospital was made the first hospital in Tamil Nadu dedicated to the treatment of COVID patients. The number of health workers in this hospital affected by COVID has been low and there has been no death due to the infection.
The awards have been instituted by Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations (CAHO), an apex body of accredited healthcare organisations, in association with National Institution of Occupational Health, a wing of Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), and Global Society of HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) Professionals.
“The award is given for workplace safety every year on ‘World Patient Safety Day’ on September 17. This year, the theme was ‘Health worker safety: a priority for patient safety’,” said R Jayanthi, dean, OGMCH. “Since, this year, we also have a pandemic, the award has been given to hospitals that have ensured proper safety measures for health workers during COVID-19. Across the country, 93 hospitals and seven from abroad competed for the awards. From Tamil Nadu, our hospital has been chosen as first in the ‘large hospitals’ (300 to 600 beds) category,” she said.
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The awards were decided based on parameters such as provision of adequate PPEs for health workers, having proper physical distance barriers, number of COVID patients treated and the number of healthcare workers in COVID and non-COVID wards not turning positive.
“As on date, we have treated nearly 18,000 COVID patients and 16,700 patients have been discharged. COVID deaths in our hospital have been very minimal and the death rate is 1 to 1.3 per cent, which is much lower than the national average,” said Jayanthi.
Recently, the hospital treated and discharged a 45-year-old Covid patient after 60 days. The patient had 90 per cent lung involvement due to COVID Pneumonia. This is considered as a remarkable achievement with such a long stay in hospital, she said.
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“Our 100 per cent adherence to COVID guidelines, proper donning and doffing of PPEs, tele-monitoring of patient vitals so that doctors need not enter into COVID wards often and low-contact radiology are some of our novelties, which became the reasons behind winning this award,” Jayanthi said.
