Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Thursday (November 14) announced the implementation of a new tag system for patient attendants in government hospitals. The system will be introduced gradually in 36 government medical colleges, 37 district headquarters hospitals and 320 taluk hospitals. The decision was taken after Dr Balaji Jagannathan, a senior oncologist at Guindy Multi-Speciality Hospital in Chennai, was stabbed by the son of a cancer patient.

The measure aims to reduce overcrowding and improve safety for medical professionals, echoing concerns raised following the rape and subsequent murder of a postgraduate medical student at Calcutta’s RG Kar Medical College. The new system, trialled at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) in early October, aims to reduce overcrowding and improve security. Each patient will receive two color-coded tags for their attendants, green for surgical super specialties, red for intensive care units, yellow for super specialty departments and blue for general wards.

The label system will be implemented by the directorates of medical education and research and rural medical and health services. In response to requests from doctors’ associations, metal detectors and baggage scanners will also be tested in one or two hospitals.

Minister Subramanian highlighted the growing public trust in public hospitals, leading to an increase in the number of patients. He also noted the introduction of pay wards in 15 public hospitals to improve accessibility for the middle-income group. Many patients who were earlier treated in private hospitals are now shifting to government hospitals due to improved infrastructure and trust in doctors.