Odisha govt forms expert teams to monitor functioning of COVID-19 care facilities

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], April 19 : The Odisha government has constituted expert teams, both at the state level and medical college level, who will visit the established COVID-19 facilities and monitor them for the provision of optimal COVID-19 case management in the state.
According to the State Health Department, during the first phase of the COVID pandemic in the State several COVID-19 Care Centers (CCC) dedicated COVID Health Centers (DCHC) and Dedicated COVID Hospitals (DCH) have been set up across the state. Many of them had suspended their operation or reduced the capacity during the decline of the first phase of the COVID-19.
"As the incidence of COVID 19 cases are on rise currently, the Government of Odisha have taken expeditious steps to expand the capacity of treatment facilities for the peoples of the State. These include expansion of the bed, high dependency unit (HDU) and Intensive care unit (ICU) capacity in government as well as private hospitals to mitigate the pandemic," it said.
The state-level team comprised four members. The special secretary (public health) will act as chairman of the team. Others are head of the departments of pulmonary medicine, microbiology and anaesthesiology of the respective medical college hospital of the district tagged. The medical college-level team has three members with heads of the three departments of the medical college.
The team will inspect and supervise the COVID hospitals on-site in the districts tagged to them with prior information to the chief district medical and public health officers of the district that will facilitate the inspection
He will ensure the presence of an authorised medical officer attached to the hospital during the inspection of the team.
The teams will observe and assess the protocols followed for screening the cases, isolation and quarantine mechanisms followed, method of sample collection, management of COVID-19 positive cases, management of patients in ICUs, biomedical waste disposal, infection control and prevention methods, rational use of PPEs, deceased body disposal methods followed and appropriate use of facilities like HDUs and ICU beds.
The members of the team will also assess the quality of diets, equipment, provision and stock of logistics including oxygen, drugs and PPEs.
The state-level team will inspect and supervise the Covid hospitals based on the feedback received from MCH level teams.
SCB medical college hospital (MCH) Cuttack will look after Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada, Khurda, Nayagarh and Puri. The districts of Boudh, Ganjam, Gajapati and Kandhamal will be tagged to the MKCG MCH Berhampur. VIMSAR Burla will take care of Angul, Bargarh, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur and Sundargarh.
SLN MCH will look after Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur and Rayagada. Districts of Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj will be tagged to the PRM MCH Baripada. Balangir's BB MCH will look after Balangir, Kalahandi, Nuapada and Sonepur, while FM MCH Balasore will oversee Balasore and Bhadrak districts.