As We all know that government staff in health centers never come on time for work , so Corporation of Chennai has come up with an mind blowing idea to ensure timely attendance of staff working in its urban primary health centers (UPHCs).Chennai has 140 UPHCs that function from 8am to 3pm. Each centre treats around 150 patients a day.
This Action was taken in response to patients complaining about that several doctors, nurses, pharmacists and lab technicians who come late to work and leave early .
So this new law came into practice from last friday so as to discipline staff reporting late to work in UPHCs, the Greater Chennai Corporation has started using , messaging app WhatsApp.
The civic body’s zonal health officers and medical officers across the 15 zones have to visit at least two hospitals every day between 8am and 8:30am, take a photograph of the assembled staff and along with attendance details post it in a WhatsApp group.
“We have formed a WhatsApp group exclusively to monitor UPHCs and instructed all concerned officers to visit them early in the morning and check whether all staff are present,” a senior corporation official said.”The idea is to curb absenteeism among the UPHC staff and ensure field inspections by senior health officials. We will be able to track the regular defaulters and prevent tampering of the attendance registers,” the official said.
Functioning of UPHCs has been severly affected due to shortage of staff, And in the recent reportes from a human resources firm The Falcon Security Services, The corporation had outsourced to hire staff including doctors, pharmacists and nurses in the UPHCs, and has filled only 143 of the 477 posts. And after the civic body terminated the contract with FSS and released another tender to recruit staff in UPHCs.
Besides UPHCs, the corporation uses WhatsApp to monitor activities including garbage clearance and road work.
