Civil hospital lab to remain open till 6pm

The laboratory at the Lord Mahavira Civil Hospital will be operational up to 6pm for all patients from Monday onwards. Earlier, it used to be operational till 3pm, and after that only emergency samples were collected.

Civil hospital senior medical officer (SMO) Dr Parvinderpal Singh Sidhu said, "This was the need of hour, as many patients approach civil hospital to get their tests done at nominal rates. Due to huge rush, all patients were not able to get their tests done on the same day. So, we decided to open the laboratory for till 6pm. While the emergency samples will be collected throughout the day as earlier."

Nearly 20,000 samples are collected per month on an average in civil hospital laboratory.

HOD's appointed for each department

Now every department of the Lord Mahavira Civil Hospital will have a head of department (HOD) to streamline the functioning and fix the responsibilities of staff. SMO Dr Parvinderpal Singh Sidhu gave the post of HOD to the senior most doctor of every department.

He also appointed doctors as nodal officers for different programmes being run by the government in the hospital.

Dr Sidhu said, "For smooth functioning of the hospital, it is necessary to divide responsibilities among staff."

It is pertinent to mention here that earlier in absence of HOD system; everything was directly linked to SMO due to which things went unnoticed. Many times some doctors were deputed on other duties, which caused problem for patients of that particular department. With the system of HOD's, this problem will be solved up to some extent.

Instructions given to identify professional blood donors

After receiving information about the gang of professional blood donors active in the hospital, SMO gave directions to the Blood Bank head to identify them and keep them away from the civil hospital.

These professionals used to donate their blood to poor people by charging Rs 1,000-Rs 1,500 per unit.

Dr Sidhu said, "I asked my staff to keep such elements away from the hospital. There are norms for donating blood and that should not be violated. Poor people should not suffer due to these professional donors."

One such professional donor was caught by the staff members a few days back, who gave written apology.