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Under-equipped govt hosps cark swine flu patients
The ill-equipped government hospitals are burning a big hole in the pockets of swine flu patients in Telangana. With the lack of Viral Transport Medium (VTM) used to collect swabs in the government hospitals, patients with swine flu symptoms have to depend on private hospitals spending a lot of money.
Hyderabad: The ill-equipped government hospitals are burning a big hole in the pockets of swine flu patients in Telangana. With the lack of Viral Transport Medium (VTM) used to collect swabs in the government hospitals, patients with swine flu symptoms have to depend on private hospitals spending a lot of money.
According to sources, many district hospitals have been facing shortage of VTMs. A doctor on the condition of anonymity said, “We get five suspected cases per day. As we do not have the VTM, we refer the patients to Gandhi Hospital. But, many such patients approach private hospitals spending around Rs 10,000.”
Sources said the private hospitals send the samples twice or thrice to the IPM in Hyderabad. The negligence in collecting swabs from the suspected patients, non-maintenance of proper cold chain system to store the swab and transporting to the IPM lab is resulting in getting wrong reports.
And in case of swine flu Category-A and Category-B patients, there is no need to take samples and can be managed with tablets. But allegations are that the private hospitals are sending these samples also to the IPM which put an extra financial burden on the patients.
Interestingly, the 20-bed swine flu ward at the Gandhi Hospital does not have a separate ward for children. A doctor said the swine flu ward should work round the clock and it requires sufficient staff for special care and ventilators. To share the patient’s burden, the health department has set up a 10-bed swine flu ward also at the Fever Hospital, Nallakunta, but it still does not have ventilators.
A paediatrician said a separate swine flu ward for children should be set up in all hospitals.
Though the swine flu season started in July, the health department had so far not printed the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) material and did not distribute to the districts. When contacted, Dr Subbalakshmi, Joint Director, Epidemics, said the procurement of VTMs was in process and the IEC material would also be available soon.
