Plan for police posts at dist hospitals yet to take off

BY V L SRINIVASAN

Published on Nov 17, 2006

Hyderabad: The Medical and Health department’s plan to set up police outposts in all teaching and district hospitals is being delayed due to non-availability of personnel with the Special Protection Force (SPF).

The decision to have security in these medical institutions was taken following the attack on the doctors of the KG Hospital in Visakhapatnam by the relatives of a patient on August 20 this year.

The incident sparked off protests from doctors across the State who struck work for a couple of days.

They, however, resumed duties after the State Government assured to provide security in the hospitals to ensure that such ‘‘unfortunate incidents do not recur in future.’’

There are 17 teaching hospitals under the Directorate of Medical Education and 19 district hospitals under AP Vaidya Vidhana Parishad and 36 outposts have to established in them. At present, security at major hospitals is outsourced and private security agencies are doing the job on contract basis.

Each outpost has to be manned by one head constable (HC) and four constables (PCs) per shift and each man being paid Rs 8,000 per month and the tentative cost per outpost comes to around Rs 4.8 lakh per month. For 24-hour surveillance, it will be three times - 14.40 lakh per month - and around Rs 27 lakh as non-recurring expenditure.

According to official sources, some 36 HCs and 144 PCs are required to man these outposts and the Special Protection Force (SPF) was approached to provide the required staff. But the SPF officials are understood to have expressed their inability as the entire personnel were already positioned in various offices. ‘‘At present, some 32 sub inspectors and 344 constables are undergoing training but they will be ready for deployment only in 2008,’’ sources told Express.

The SPF officials even said that one HC and four PCs would be inadequate and their numbers should be doubled.

When contacted, Principal Secretary (Medical & Health) P K Agarwal said that most of the hospitals have a security set-up at present and a decision will be taken soon on whether to upgrade the existing set-up or dismantle them totally and establish new police outposts.