Register patients online till tomorrow, private de-addiction centres told

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 13

B Srinivasan, Additional Secretary (Health), in a letter to Civil Surgeons of the state, has stated that every private drug de-addiction centre, licensed by the state government, would be linked with the computerised patient-registration system of the Department of Health and Family Welfare to ensure that a patient does not get the same medication from multiple sources.

However, all private de-addiction centres have not received this direction yet. It has also been directed that an online registry system should be implemented at all centres by September 15 but doctors at the centres claimed that they had not been apprised of the login ID through which they could register the details of patients.

Dr Sunit of Ashoka Neuro Psychiatric Hospital and Drug De-addiction Centre said a meeting was held recently with the representatives of the centres and they were given a training on the registration procedure. The representatives said they would be given the login ID to register the patients but they had not given the same so far. As the due date was approaching, they did not know how to register their patients. Some owners of de-addiction centres said it would put extra burden on them as they were already keeping the record of medicines given to the patients.

Srinivasan said as government centres were linked to a central registry, the registration by private centres would help determine the actual flow of medicines at these centres, adding that several times it had been observed that proxy patients were being sent to other centres. Hence, to stop the duplicity of patients and keep a track of persons receiving medicines, the decision was taken. It will help to check the patients who have abruptly stopped taking medicines. In case of defiance, action would be taken to cut the supply of medicines to those centres where patients remain unregistered after September 15.