SMS hosp docs celebrate one year of ‘tele-evidence’ facility

Jaipur: One year ago, the then Chief Justice of Rajasthan high court, Justice S S Shinde, inaugurated a “remote point” for doctors at SMS Hospital to depose or give evidence or expert opinion through video conference. Since then, 282 depositions for evidence have been made by SMS doctors through video conferencing using the remote point, the first for any government hospital in Rajasthan.

After one year of this unique initiative in the state, an impact assessment report by SMS medical college has been prepared.

The report says that the facility has not only saved governments funds but also the precious time of doctors, which they had to spend travelling to other districts to appear in court hearings.

The report says that about Rs 5.7 lakh has been saved in government funds on travel allowance, dietary and other allowances for doctors and Rs 4 lakh of personal expenses of doctors in doing such government duty.

The report states that 6,000-plus duty hours of doctors have been saved by the tele-evidence facility, which corresponds to 25,000 extra patients attended to during duty hours.

“It is a moment to celebrate at SMS hospital on completion of one year of the high court’s remote tele-evidence point. Hospital superintendent Dr Achal Sharma cut the cake on the occasion in the presence of high court registrar BK Goyal and technical director Sanjay Sharma,” said forensic medicine head of department Dr R K Verma on Saturday.

Former HoD (forensic medicine) Dr S Dutta said that in many court cases related to ccidents, assault, sexual assault, etc, doctors, especially orthopaedic experts and gynecologists from SMS Hospital had to travel to courts not only in Jaipur but also in other districts.