It took a rat, chewing on a dead patient’s face for the state health department to wake up to the lousy state of affairs in their government hospitals.
Health minister V.S. Vijay continued his surprise inspection spree on Friday, suspending a supervisor and issuing a memo to a senior doctor at the Institute of Child Health in Egmore.
After suspending nine people, including two doctors at the Kasturba Gandhi government hospital where the body of a 11-day-old girl was eaten by rats in the neo natal ICU, the minister has begun inspecting all major government hospitals.
On Friday, he first visited the kitchen and the mortuary at the ICH, and gave instructions for the area to be cleaned up.
Accompanied by Dr V. Kanagasabai, dean of Madras Medical College, the minister reprimanded hospital administrators for hoarding up new tube lights and other material.
“Why have you bought so many new lights and kept them in a corner?” he asked, directing them to install the lights at the earliest. He also suspended store room supervisor Balaji, for not doing his job properly.
An orthopedic specialist himself, the minister wanted to inspect the ortho ward. To his surprise, there was no duty doctor around, and nobody was able to give him a satisfactory response to why there was nobody in-charge of the little patients in the ward. He issued a memo to the head of the orthopaedics department.
“The chief minister has directed me to inspect all 12 government hospitals in the city and submit a review report to her immediately,” said Dr Vijay.
On Thursday, the minister had inspected the Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital and suspended a sanitation officer.