231 hospitals get notices for not sharing patient data

Chennai: Greater Chennai Corporation has issued notices to 231 hospitals for not sharing data on patients treated for flu-like symptoms and Covid-19 patient discharges. In a meeting on August 13, corporation commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi had asked all private hospitals to share information on patients with influenza like illness (ILI) and Covid-19 patients.

“We had shared the e-mail ID [email protected] with a format in which the data had to be mailed every day. But we haven't been receiving them,” said Bedi.

“Many patients undergoing treatment for Covid-19 are discharged within 3-4 days and have to be in home isolation after that. However, we recently came across a few cases where discharged patients were sources of new infections as they didn’t follow the isolation protocols,” said assistant city health officer, Mahalakshmi. Inspections revealed that some hospitals did not disinfect their premises regularly as well.

An official said data on fever cases will help them trace contacts and do focused testing to avoid clusters.