The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : An eye-opener

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

An eye-opener

The infection outbreak at SAT Hospital, which led to the death of several newborns following nosocomial infection, has become an eye-opener, many in the medical fraternity aver.

Not only did the incident bring the severe deficiencies in Government hospitals into the limelight, it also helped the health authorities to implement certain reforms in hospitals.

Many doctors point out that if it were not for the public outrage following the SAT incident, some of their long-standing complaints regarding the unmanageable number of patients or the ancient staff pattern in Government hospitals would not have merited any attention from the Government.

There had been attempts before too at restricting visitors in Government hospitals but the authorities always gave in at the slightest resistance from people.

Following the SAT incident, the Government went ahead with restrictions on visitors in all hospitals; attempts were being made to provide more staff, there was a ban on plastic and hospital workers were being trained in universal precautions to be adopted.

The threat of `infection' seems to have pulled off a coup of sorts.

C. MAYA

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