Thiruvananthapuram: In a major relief to patients and their attendants, the Trivandrum Medical College authorities on Friday implemented “Sahayakootam” a programme through which trainee lab technicians will carry out all activities related to collection of samples and reports from laboratories. To begin with 40 trainee lab technicians have been deployed to collect samples from the bedside of patients and take these to respective laboratories. They will also bring back the lab test reports and hand over to patients.
The new programme which was launched by health minister K.K. Shailaja and cooperation minister Kadkampally Surendran will reduce the burden of attendants and patients. Laboratories are located at different places in medical college campus which is spread over an area of over 5 km. These include bio chemistry, clinical pathlogy, micro biology central laboratory, HDS laboratory, OP collection room, ACR Lab, histopathology lab and bio chemistry. While central laboratory is located in blood bank complex, HDS laboratory is near mortuary, ACR lab near old casualty wing, OP collection room in OP block, histopathology lab in histopathology department and bio chemistry special lab in bio chemistry department.
More than 2500 people visit central laboratory, 1500 HDS lab and 1500 ACR lab for blood tests daily. Since these labs are located at different places, attendants have to leave the patients alone for hours to submit samples and wait for results. In case of patients requiring multiple tests, the attendants have to take various rounds. There have been several complaints regarding people facing huge inconvenience. The problems of attendants had also gone viral on social networking sites.
It was in view of these problems, health minister intervened and directed to put in place the new system. As of now the Sahayakootam facility has been provided in medical college hospital, super speciality block and casualty. A trial run of the programme was carried out successfully for two weeks following which it was implemented. Ms. Shailaja handed over the test results to patients of ward 4 on Friday to mark the beginning of the services. She congratulated all people behind this initiative.
