Muddasir Ali’s Death|Fresh guidelines for management of emergencies in peripheries on cards

Kashmir’s health department has initiated the process of strengthening facilities and response to medical emergencies in peripheral hospitals of Kashmir.

Fresh protocols are being worked out to improve the response time and efficacy for better outcomes, the department said.

   

Following recommendations of the probe committee that investigated circumstances that led to death of Greater Kashmir senior editor Muddasir Ali, Directorate of Health Services Kashmir is working out Standard Operating Protocols for cardiac and other medical emergencies.

Director Health Services Kashmir, DrSumirMattoo said the committee, of which he is the chairman, has been constituted to identify lacunae in the delivery of emergency medical care and formulate plans to address these.

He said the committee had its first meeting on Wednesday.

Earlier last week, DHSK constituted an eight-member advisory board for devising strategies and protocols for emergency rooms.

As per an order issued by the department, a number of other teams were also constituted.

These include a Central Emergency Room (ER) team that would monitor the functioning of ER and also aid in formulating strategies for improvement of the response system.

DrMattoo said the department was taking active steps to strengthen delivery of emergency and critical care across the hospitals.

He said the department had initiated steps to train the healthcare workers – doctors, nurses, paramedics and others in providing Basic Life Support, Advanced Life Support decipher ECGs, and operate life saving equipment.

In November 2020, after the family of Greater Kashmir senior editor, Muddasir Ali alleged that he passed away due to delay and mismanagement at SDH Charar-e-Sharif, the department initiated an inquiry to probe the case.

A preliminary inquiry found “lapses at multiple levels” in the healthcare delivery, including “inappropriate CPR”.

A subsequent inquiry stated that the administrator of the hospital be held accountable for not ensuring that the basic requirements like stretcher was immediately available to the patient, resulting in increased stress to his heart as he was made to climb the stairs.

However, the inquiry extensively resorted to words like “may have”, “goodwill”, “impression” to explain the delay in starting the treatment by the doctor who told the family that Muddasir had suffered a heart attack.

However, the inquiry report had called for attention towards management of emergencies in hospitals and underlined the need for improving skills of the human resource.

The fresh order by DHSK has constituted zonal-level inspection teams to monitor the grass-root health facilities and carry out surprise visits for ascertaining the facilities and practices.

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