Security alert: Hospitals asked to check every visitor

LAHORE:

Every person entering a hospital will be frisked at the entrance, says the standard operating procedure issued to hospitals and medical colleges by the Health Department on Saturday. The SOP lists 26 measures that medical institutes and hospitals have been instructed to implement.

There is a need to beef up security protocol in view of recent terror threats, the Health Department says.

Hospitals and medical institutes have been instructed to build at least 8-feet high boundary walls with two-feet of barbed wire on top. They have been advised to keep a record of all visitors and to increase the number of security guards. They have been advised to install walk-through gates and metal detectors. They have been asked to install surveillance cameras and search lights where necessary.

Medical institutes have been asked not to allow any unauthorised person in without confirming their identity.

The SOP was prepared in consultation with security agencies on Friday. Officials said hospitals and schools were soft targets which needed to be secured at the earliest. The tight security measures might appear cumbersome to hospital visitors and patients at first, “but soon they will get used to it”, they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2014.