Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Doctors trained to serve with smile

Ramya Kannan

Bid to make secondary care hospitals ‘patient-friendly’ spaces

CHENNAI: A serious exercise is on to make 270 secondary care hospitals in 29 districts (Chennai has only tertiary care facilities) ‘patient-friendly’ spaces.

At the Institute of Public Health in Poonamalee, the toughest part of the image make-over process is on. Doctors, staff nurses, lab technicians, X-ray diagnosticians and low-grade workers (including ward-boys and ‘ayahs’) are undergoing a five-day course in interpersonal communication.

Trainers from Ma Foi, a consulting firm, have been trying to get these groups, forming various levels of the hospital hierarchy, to gel together, talk about the problems in their hospitals and bring out the change in their centres.

Through a series of games and interactive procedures, used for corporates, the trainees have been weaned off their negative outlook to open up and, importantly, to believe that change is possible. “It is an ancient system and will take time to change,” says R. Kannan, one of the trainers.

“This is a chance for them to articulate their grievances and at the same time come up with their own solutions, ” he says.

From the tasks they get to do, the participants draw their own conclusions: service with a smile is best, remain focussed on patients and team work is possible.

While a change in the attitude of the doctors and other staff at the secondary care hospitals might be the toughest thing to achieve, it is by no means the only thing on the agenda of the World Bank funded-Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project for bettering care for patients.

Its Project Director, P.W.C. Davidar, lists a whole range of changes — right from building new hospitals to replacing old equipment, increasing staff strength, computerising medical records to celebrating birthdays of staff members in the health centre.

The participants are as involved or excited as they should be when talking about issues. But ask them if they are sure the change will come about and they are a little hesitant.

“The smiling service provider concept will work only if our load reduces. There have been days when I have seen over 300 cases in the outpatient department. It is a little difficult to smile after a while,” says Dr.Aram D. of the government hospital, Sathur. All the same, he is determined to try.

Nurse Asma Beevi of Kumbakonam says the training has been really useful, but it will be a challenge to implement it unless seniors in the hospital are also trained.

The participants of the workshop will now be master trainers to orient their colleagues in the same concepts, with some hand-holding from Ma Foi.

Past experience, however, has been encouraging, says Mr. Kannan.

The training has been completed in Maharashtra, where a hospital at Ahmednagar, notorious for its inefficiency, won a change management award one year after the training programme was completed.

The programme is going on in Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

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