Eating lunch or dinner in the ICU or pathology labs and dozing off on duty will become even more difficult for medical staff with round-the-clock monitoring being introduced in government hospitals across Uttar Pradesh.

Renu Srivastava Verma, director general of Medical Health, said: "Vigil is being increased at all 167 districts hospitals for two reasons-- to ensure that all medical staff, including doctors, perform their duty as required and to reduce instances of tussle between patients/attendants and medical staff."

"If an employee is found to be sleeping then the nodal officer concerned will be notified. Cameras installed on each hospital campus will have a nodal officer whose number is registered with the monitoring cell," said the guidelines issued by the director (administration) of the health department, Rajaganapathy R.

The circular has been issued to all hospitals and chief medical officers.

Each hospital will have 16 strategically located closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, whose monitoring will be done by a dedicated team at the state health directorate headquarters.

The first camera, to be set up at emergency wings, will keep an eye on any unwanted activity/people and check if stretchers and wheelchairs are available.

The second camera will be placed at the outpatient wing to check if the staffers arrive on duty on time while the third camera will keep a track of the dress code and management of bio-medical waste, said the guidelines.

The camera in the ICU will check whether the medical staff are actively performing their duty towards patients and if they are maintaining the protocol.

"Most of the hospitals have installed the cameras. They shall first be integrated with headquarters. Gradually, we will increase the number of cameras in every hospital. The monitoring will be round-the-clock," said the DG of medical health. [IANS/JS]