Health control room project dies slow death

KOLKATA: The health control room, a dream project of chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that got under way with much fanfare on January 26 this year, is dying a slow death. Housed in NRS Medical College and Hospital with 20 computers to provide up-to-date information, it is suffering from neglect on the part of government hospitals (which are supposed to supply them with information).
Those working at the control room cannot even force the hospitals into action to regularly update information as the health department has not issued any order empowering the control room to ask for it.Result?
In July, the control room had information about hospitals for only three days on an aver-age. Effectively, the control room did not have any information about these hospitals for the rest of the 27 days.
No government order directing the officials to supply information makes things even more difficult. So officials cannot even force the hospitals to supply information to them. "What can be the basis of our approach since we do not have any government order to force them to give us information?," asked another senior official.
Only blood banks and Lady Dufferin Hospital are regularly supplying them infor-mation about their stock and bed positions, officials say.
All other units are irregular, especially NRS, Medical and CNCH, which have made information available only once in July. SSKM and RG Kar provided information for four days while ID just thrice. Officials blame lack of co-operation on the part of hospital authorities for the condition.
"They never attend to our calls, nor do they take the initiative of informing us on their own. We have let the higher authorities know of the situation but things haven''t improved at all," said an official of the control room.
The message board in the control room flashes the same bit of information for all hospitals — ''Could not be contacted through Centrex'' (a hotline connected directly to the hospitals for supplying information).
The control room was set up as part of Swasthya Bhawan following World Bank assistance. Just that the control room started operating from the premises of the NRS Medical College owing to its convenient location. All the control room can do is guide a patient seeking treatment in government hospitals. "Many people call up everyday asking for help. We try our best to guide them on the basis of the information we have," an officer said.