Tamil Nadu tweaks protocol to bring down mortality rate

Chennai

“We are increasing the bed strength to about 2,000 in all the districts, and there will be 500 dedicated oxygen cylinder beds. The idea is to conduct large number of fever clinics to identify infected persons in short span,” said a monitoring officer in southern district, adding that the aim is to bring down infection rate to less than one.

Officials are also hoping to bring down mortality rate in the State from 1.28 per cent to less than 1 per cent, sources said.

Health secretary J Radhakrishnan has also reached out to senior monitoring officers to work on IT tools and revised clinical protocols using which details like hospital beds and patient health records can be accessed online. At present, adequate records are not available in digitised formal though data is crucial for doctors and administrators to improvise treatment. By next week, districts like Madurai and Vellore would have medical data and mobile applications that would help the medical team scale up treatment, the official added.

“If things go as per plan, Tamil Nadu will slow down mortality rate by up to 40 per cent, which will help reduce the fear among public,” said another senior monitoring officer in northern Tamil Nadu.

While significance was given more to lockdown and testing earlier, the focus has now shifted to conducting fever clinics to identify COVID positive persons. On the clinical side, a standard system is also prescribed under which doctors would have a common protocol for most of the patients.

Earlier, duty doctors and resident medical officers were deciding the treatment protocol and prescribed the recommended drugs. But the has now been standardised for those with mild infection. The idea to prevent those in hospital with mild symptoms should not go to ICU with ventilators, the official said.

Providing pulse oxymeters to civic workers, separate emergency provisions with oxygen cylinders and compulsory CT scan would also help in the fight against the pandemic, the official added.