Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Hospital sports a clean look

R. Sujatha

`OPERATION CLEAN': Volunteers from a few city colleges and Community Health Education Society, a non-government organisation, cleaned the cancer wards at the Women and Children's hospital in Egmore on Saturday. — Photo: S. Thanthoni

CHENNAI: Government officials are enlisting the help of social workers to clean up State-run hospitals even as the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS) is taking the initiative to improve the quality of service in these hospitals.

Sanitary workers are being provided with boots and equipment to clean bathrooms and toilets. College students enrolled in the National Service Scheme are being encouraged to help in the clean-up drive and this will bring these hospitals closer to the community, says P. Guhanandan, project officer of TANSACS. "Universal work precaution drive" is a hospital-based management programme. It began six months ago with students helping to clean the wards of Kilpauk Medical College Hospital.

On Saturday, students from New College and Loyola College assisted volunteers from the Community Health Education Society (CHES) to clean the cancer wards at the Government-run Women and Children's Hospital in Egmore. CHES is assisting with the anti-retroviral therapy for the AIDS-afflicted at the hospital.

The volunteers began work around 11 a.m. and by 2 p.m., wards 28 and 29 had been washed and the bathrooms cleaned. But the volunteers hadn't bargained for the hard labour the effort turned out to be. It took a while to clear the drains clogged with mud, plastic and other garbage. Cleaning the outpatient antenatal ward had to be put off due to lack of time.

The hospital's contract labourers clean the wards by removing cobwebs from the ceiling every week, but washing is not done, said an official at the 162-year-old hospital. In the morning, patients rested under trees with their belongings. By afternoon they were back in their beds.

CHES president P. Manorama was all praise for the contract workers and attendants who helped with the cleaning.

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