PHCs across Telangana to be brought under CCTV lens

HYDERABAD: The state health department will be installing CCTV cameras in 636 primary health centres (PHC) and 232 urban primary health centres (UPHC) across the state to allow remote monitoring of the facilities.

Hoping to streamline the monitoring and ensure the centres have attendance of staff, district collectors will be given the task to remotely monitor the centres through CCTV coverage. Although the government had previously introduced the biometric attendance system to arrest the problem, it has remained unsuccessful in stopping doctors from evading work.
The idea is to ensure that the PHCs and UPHCs have doctors when patients need them, as against the current scenario where patients have to wait for hours and sometimes even return home without getting a doctor for consultation. “There has been a big problem of absenteeism in many of the rural areas. PHCs and UPHCs are essentially there for the benefit of the poor and if doctors evade their duties, it is a failure on the part of the government to ensure to provide free and accessible healthcare to the neediest. The CCTV coverage of these facilities will therefore ensure that doctors do not evade their duties,” said an official from the state health department.
Currently, there is a 20-30 per cent absenteeism at many centres and the biometric system has been misused by the doctors and even other staff members. The problem has worsened at around 100 to 120 centres.
“It has been therefore decided to set up three CCTV cameras in each PHC to rectify the situation. All the CCTV cameras will also be linked to the mobile phones of top health officials including medical health minister Harish Rao, department secretary Rizvi, health and family welfare commissioner Vakati Karuna and public health director Dr Srinivasa Rao,” added the official, saying that the direct link to the mobile phones will allow the top officials to talk to the doctor directly if necessary.