Thiruvananthapuram | The Keralam government has directed all state-run hospitals to prominently display details of doctors, vacancies and their OP timings to ensure greater transparency in healthcare services.

The Health Department Principal Secretary has directed the Director of Health Services to ensure strict implementation of the order.

The directive will apply to all government health institutions, from primary health centres to taluk headquarters hospitals, Health and Devaswom Minister K Muraleedharan has said in a statement.

The action follows complaints from the public about the functioning of public health institutions, including doctors being unavailable during OP hours and patients having to wait for long periods, he said.

As per the directive, each institution must display the total number of sanctioned doctor posts, the number of doctors currently working and the number of vacancies.

The OP/consultation timings of each doctor should also be clearly displayed and the information updated at regular intervals.

The move is aimed at making healthcare services more transparent and patient-friendly, the minister said.

The hospitals will also have to display details related to the grievance redressal mechanism.

The Director of Health Services has been directed to ensure that the phone numbers of the Deputy District Medical Officer (Vigilance) concerned and the hospital superintendent are prominently displayed for the public to contact them, the statement added.