The fight against Swine flu in Kashmir is a joke
THE threat of Swine flu has reached alarming proportions in Kashmir. Four people have died of suspected Swine flu infection while 84 more have tested positive for the virus. For five months, the health officials sat on the issue and did nothing or little to prevent the infection from spreading. SKIMS director, Dr Showkat Ahmad Zargar, himself admitted, after initial denials, that they have been handling the crisis for five months. But what was done to contain the infection is anyone’s guess. The number of infected patients has only swelled and the crisis may go out of control if immediate corrective measures are not taken.
First and foremost, our senior doctors and officials in the state’s health department must admit that a crisis is looming large over Kashmir. We must first come out of our criminal states of denial. Admission of an impending crisis in not admission of guilt. But we are running away from facts. It took days for the SKIMS authorizes to shed light on the matter. Even the death of the first patient at SMHS hospital who had tested positive for H1N1 has not been confirmed so far. The patients who are tested at SKIMS for the infection don’t get their lab reports.
This sorry state of affairs has not only created a scare among the population but also within the medical fraternity who lack resources such as specialized masks and preventive education to keep themselves safe. Instead of fighting the virus and stopping it from spreading, we are deliberately putting the lives of thousands of patients who come to our hospitals at risk.
The so-called ‘specialized ICU’ for H1N1 patients at SKIMS is nothing but a joke played in the name of healthcare. The H1N1 virus is highly contagious. It quickly spread through human contact and through air. The Swine flu patients need not only to be isolated from the other patients but a specialized, negative pressure ward is a must which keeps the infected air from mixing with the atmosphere. If such wards are not created, we will be putting lives of thousands of patients as well as ordinary people at risk.
But by all indicators, the so-called specialized wards set up at Chest Disease hospital, LD hospital and SKIMS not only lack negative pressure rooms but there is also a crippling shortage of N 95 masks as well as medicines to cure Swine flu patients. Beyond issuing advertisements and advisories, the matter must be first dealt with at the ground level, at the hospitals and medical centres across the Valley, not by living in denial mode.
However, the state of affairs can be gauged from the fact that a patient with respiratory disorder died at SMHS last week and the authorities got the ward vacated and fumigated, as if fumigation would have killed H1N1 virus!
It is high time that our health department officials as well as the government wakes up to the need of the hour and does a course correction, which will not only prevent the infection from spreading but may also save precious lives. This is the least we owe to our people.
—-Anonymous in Authint Mail
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