The Dhanbad district administration has decided to conduct a death audit in a phased manner at hospitals engaged in Covid treatment, to curtail any lapses at the facilities.

The survey will begin with five private and four government hospitals.

A committee led by Dhanbad Civil Surgeon Dr Gopal Das has already been constituted which will begin the audit work within two to three days. The committee will find out the reasons for death, including why and how it took place during the course of treatment and also try to find out whether some negligence in treatment caused the death.

“The team during the audit will also interact with the family members of Covid deceased patients and take their opinion noting down their complaints and suggestions,” said deputy commissioner Uma Shankar Singh while holding an online meeting at his office with civil surgeon and members of the audit team.

Deputy Commissioner and Chairman of District Disaster Management Authority, Uma Shankar Singh holds an online meeting with the representatives of the Covid hospitals in the district on Monday. Gautam Dey

The audit report will be prepared as per the National Format for Disease control and will be submitted before May 30.

“The aim of conducting a death audit is not only finding faults for hospitals but rather bringing a real picture to find out where we have missed in treatment and what is required to bring down the death rate, how to strengthen the Covid treatment protocols? What preparations need to be made for the future? Etc,” said Singh and added that corrective steps will be taken as per the recommendation of the audit team.

“We will be carrying out death audit in phase wise manner of all hospitals beginning with nine hospitals, including five private hospitals like Healmax Hospital, Pragati Nursing Home, Asharfi Hospital; Asian Dwarkadas Jalan Super speciality hospital; Patliputra Nursing besides the four government owned Covid treatment facilities , including Divisional Railway Hospital, Sadar Hospital, Cath Lab of Sahid Nirmal Mahto Memorial Medical College and Hospital and Central Hospital of Dhanbad,” said Singh.

“The team during the course of the audit will also mention the number and opinion of doctors and medical staff of the hospital and make necessary suggestions to the hospital management to carry out improvement in the existing arrangement of the hospital,” further said Singh.

Dhanbad has recorded 352 deaths out of total 14306 Covid cases, which is around 2.4%. The death rate in Dhanbad is much higher than the death rate of neighbouring Bokaro where only 215 out of 17480 Covid victims have died and thus death rate is 1.2%.