Chennai will soon get its third full-fledged emergency department in the government sector at the Government Kilpauk Medical College (KMC) Hospital. After Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) and Government Royapettah Hospital, an emergency department — that includes triage area, resuscitation bay and colour-coded zones — as per the Tamil Nadu Accident and Emergency Care Initiative (TAEI) guidelines is being readied at KMC.
P. Vasanthamani, Dean, KMC, said the hospital’s zero-delay ward would soon become a full-fledged emergency department. “The zero-delay ward and casualty were being run separately. Now we have merged the two into the emergency department. Infrastructure work is fast progressing. The remodelling has been taken up as per TAEI guidelines and it will have all facilities. It should be ready by the second week of May,” she said.
A model centre
KMC is recognised as a level II trauma care centre. Every day, the zero-delay ward received an average of 40 to 50 cases, she said, adding, “The new facility will include a one-stop procedure room, emergency resuscitation bays, red, green and yellow zones, and examination room. We are developing this as a model centre.”
In Chennai, after RGGGH, a similar emergency facility was set up at the Government Royapettah Hospital following minor modifications, according to J. Mariano Anto Bruno Mascarenhas, technical team leader, TAEI. “This will be the third such emergency department in the city, and the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital will soon follow. Such centres are being established in around 75 government hospitals across the State,” he said.
He added that emergency departments consisted of an emergency room (ER) and a hybrid high-dependency unit or multidisciplinary critical care unit. “The ER will have triage area and resuscitation bay. The ER is colour-coded as red, yellow and green, based on the nature of emergency. A standard emergency room, work flow mechanism in the trauma care facility is to be set up,” he explained.
The ER would also have point of care testing for rapid investigations. He pointed out that at RGGGH — where a full-fledged emergency department has been functioning for over a year — mortality rates had dropped significantly.