To streamline admission procedures for patients seeking beds in state healthcare facilities, the Bengal Health Department launched an online central referral system on Friday, November 1.

It will allow hospitals in districts to requisition beds in top hospitals in Kolkata before sending patients, thus reducing hassles for patients to a large extent. It will also allow patients and their relatives to check the availability of beds themselves, since electronic boards displaying the vacancies in various departments have been placed near the emergency wards of the hospitals.

As of now, the system links five government medical college-cum-hospitals in Kolkata, which are designated as tertiary care referral hospitals—SSKM Hospital, Medical College Hospital (popularly known as Calcutta Medical College), NRS Hospital, RG Kar Hospital and Calcutta National Medical College Hospital.

This online system would gradually be implemented throughout the state, a Health Department official told the news agency PTI.

A senior official at Swasthya Bhawan, the Health Department’s headquarters in Salt Lake, explained to The Statesman how the online central referral system would work: Doctors in a rural hospital can refer a patient to a district hospital with details of the patient’s condition. The district hospital, after evaluating the patient’s needs and bed availability, can then either admit the patient or, if necessary, refer them to a medical college hospital. The central referral system will manage admissions based on bed vacancies in the five medical colleges.

This move comes in response to one of the demands by the doctors agitating (under the banner of West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF)) since the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.

The online central referral system is a part of the state government’s health management information system (HMIS), will track bed availability in these teaching hospitals.