Chennai: Hospitals get showcause notices for failing to report Covid deaths

CHENNAI: Chennai-based hospitals that failed to inform Covid-19 deaths have been sent showcause notices asking them why action should not be initiated against them for violations under the Clinical Establishments Act. The directorate of medical services (DMS) has also issued notices to hospitals in Madurai for not sending adequate details or not using the standard RT-PCR test for diagnosis.Failure to submit valid reasons will lead to action including cancellation of registration that can lead to closure of the hospitals, the notice said.
The notices were sent to the city hospitals as part of the weekly reconciliation exercise for Covid-19 deaths. On July 23, when the state added 444 additional Covid deaths between March and July to the Chennai toll, state health secretary J Radhakrishnan announced that a reconciliation committee will verify data based on information from labs, hospitals and burial or cremation grounds every week. All hospitals treating Covid 19 patients must send scanned clinical documents regarding deaths within 24 hours (8am to 8am) to the directorate of medical services.
“We have sent notices to 10 hospitals including some of them in the city, for not reporting deaths or not following protocols,” said director of medical services S Gurunathan. The death of a 54-year-old man at a private hospital in Arumbakkam on July 9 came to the Greater Chennai Corporation’s notice on July 29 when they were collating information from the crematoriums. The same day the civic agency got reports about deaths in two other private hospitals -- on OMR and Nanganallur -- on July 26 and July 19. At the hospital in OMR, a 63-year-old woman was admitted for more than a month and at the Nangallur hospital, an 89-year-old man died on the same day of admission.
In June, when the directorate of public health found that 256 deaths from March to June 10 were added to the state toll, it formed a committee to streamline Covid deaths. In the second week of July, the reconciliation committee added 186 more deaths taking the total number of unreported deaths to 444. When these deaths were added to the toll on July 23, the state put in place a committee for weekly review.
Notices were also sent to two private hospitals in Madurai. One medical college hospital was pulled up for not sending adequate details including the name, address and contact details of the diseases or the name of the laboratory that confirmed Covid-19 infection for three patients admitted to the hospital. Another private hospital has been pulled up for using antibody tests instead of the prescribed RT-PCR for confirming Covid-19.