Hospital Security Tightened in Telangana After Kolkata Incident
Hyderabad: Health minister Damodar Rajanarsimha directed officials to set up hospital safety committees at the state and district levels to formulate safety regulations, and submit a report by September 14. This is in line with the Supreme Court guidelines with regard to evolving mechanism for the safety of medical personnel, following the rape-murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital last month.
Rajnarsimha directed officials, at a review meeting here, to tighten security in government hospitals, especially for female doctors, nursing officers, and staff, by implementing night-time patrolling by SHE Teams. He directed that steps be taken to construct permanent outposts in all teaching hospitals.
The meeting decided that cases related to the attacks on hospital doctors and nurses would be registered under the Telangana Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act, 2008.
Rajanarsimha sought data on cases registered so far and directed the setting up of a fast-track court in the 10 undivided districts to expedite the trial of these cases. He directed the creation of a standard operating procedure (SOP) for security and directed medical department and police officials to coordinate on security matters at hospitals.
He said police outposts had been set up at 10 teaching hospitals, and land allocated for the construction of police outposts in the TIMS hospitals being built by the government. He said that private security agencies employed at hospitals must be recognised under the Private Security Agencies - Regulations) Act, 2015. He also ordered the integration of CCTV cameras with local police stations in all hospitals.