The activities in 30 Government hospitals of the State would now be directly watched by Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Trivendra Singh Rawat on his smart phone. The phone of the CM, who also holds the Health and Family Welfare portfolio, would be linked with the closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras of these hospitals by which he will be able to keep a watch over these hospitals.
The office of Chief Minister has directed the District Magistrates and Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of all the districts to install CCTV cameras in all the major hospitals of the State. The CM has chosen 30 hospitals which include district hospitals, district female hospitals and base hospitals for this exercise. The CM has also directed the Secretary of Information Technology to complete the process of installation of CCTV cameras within a time period of 15 days and get them connected with his smart phone. The process once complete would make all these hospitals of State directly accessible and activities there directly visible to the CM. This decision of the CM assumes significance as he has focused on these 30 hospitals ever since he took over the reins of the State Government. It is worth mentioning here that in the recent transfers also the focus of the department was to provide specialist doctors in these hospitals. The department officials claimed that the OPD arrivals in these hospitals have increased in recent months.
“We have 30 district, district female and base hospitals, 53 Community Health Centres (CHC) and 260 Primary Health Centres (PHC) and the health department has only 1088 doctors for these hospitals. In absence of doctors most of the district hospitals have also become referral centres. The State Government now has decided to judiciously use the doctors and specialists and posted them in major hospitals of the State which is a good step,’’ said one senior officer of the State Health Department.