Volunteer Program at GTB Hospital, Delhi

Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital is the largest government hospital in East Delhi, drawing patients from bordering areas of Uttar Pradesh and Ghaziabad. In June 2001, a volunteer program was initiated by the Department of Administrative Reform in collaboration with the Health Secretary; the Medical Superintendent and CMO of the GTB Hospital, and the hospital social workers.

At the community level the prospect of active participation in hospital management created great enthusiasm. Six volunteers attended the morning OPD from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm regularly in rotation for six weeks. A notice board was put up: “ACTION INDIA at your service”.

The volunteers worked relentlessly to answer questions and respond to people seeking directions or just basic information. They helped crowds of people lining up for registration to fill small chits with the primary information about the patient’s name, age, address and health problem. Those who were not literate found this particularly helpful. This simple process helped the queues to move faster and the computer clerks could make double the number of entries. The volunteers also encouraged patients to bring their information written from home.

As the volunteers gained confidence they asked more specific questions on the health problem and could for example directly guide a woman to the gynaecology department if her stomach pain was related to white discharge.

The hospital social worker working at GTB had familiarized the volunteer team with the topography of the hospital and this helped them to guide patients to concerned departments. This avoided wasting the patients time waiting at the wrong place.

After six weeks of attending the OPD our volunteers had the following observations to make.