BMC's health staff to communicate better
The civic body is all set to improve the behaviour and communication skills of its entire health staff. Bhavika Jain reports.
The civic body is all set to improve the behaviour and communication skills of its entire health staff.
After more than four incidents of negligence occurring as a result of communication failures on the part of the hospital staff in the last three months, the civic body realised the need for better-trained staff.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has begun behavioural workshops in its three main hospitals —KEM, Sion and Nair.
These workshops aim at sharpening the communication skills of its staff and make them more sensitive towards ailing patients and his or her relatives.
The workshops began three weeks ago and will be conducted every week for a year in these hospitals for the staff such as the doctors, nurses, ward boys and security personnel.
"When inquiries were conducted in the negligence cases, it was found one of the reasons for the incidents was an apparent communication gap. Hence this workshop was devised," said a senior civic officer. A case reported at Sion hospital, where an unconscious patient was mistaken as being dead by a ward boy who was asked by the nurse to take the body of the patient next to him to the morgue, was a clear case of communication lapse amongst the staff.
These workshops will have courses in doctor-patient communication, stress management, classes on how to break bad news and fine-tuning the working system of the hospital.
"We have seen that hospital staff are overworked. These seminars will help ease their stress and help them manage work better," said Additional Municipal Commissioner, Manisha Mhaiskar. To check if the camps have worked, after six months, feedback from the staff and the patients will be taken.