The first of athree- part series on the sudden spurt of dengue cases in city explores the situation at private and government hospitals
A SUDDEN spurt in dengue cases over the last fortnight has put the Capital's medical preparedness to test. Nineteen people tested positive for the disease in Delhi since Monday evening.
Private hospitals are stretched to capacity trying to cope with a rush of patients, even as the number of cases in the city rose to 416. Beds in most big private hospitals are occupied and patients turning up for treatment are being put on long waiting lists.
Despite the increasing number of dengue cases, no government hospital in the Capital has set up a separate dengue ward yet.
Rockland Hospital in South Delhi received more than 150 dengue patients in the last one week while Indraprastha Apollo Hospital near Sarita Vihar has about 100 cases.
Batra Hospital on the Mehrauli- Badarpur Road had 68 dengue patients on its record. Fortis Hospital in Vasant Kunj was relatively less burdened with 55 cases.
Dr Anupam Sibbal, medical director of Apollo Hospitals, said: " We are trying to reduce the average length of hospital stay of current patients to accommodate more people. Cases have steadily gone up over the last 10 days." The government hospitals, however, are admitting the dengue patients to other wards.
" Every day we get five to eight patients suffering from the vector- borne disease. They are admitted to the general medicine or paediatric ward because of which their treatment becomes a mess. There should be a separate ward for dengue patients," said a doctor at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan ( LNJP) Hospital.
Not only do these hospitals sidestep hygienic measures, water- logging is also a common problem.
"The roofs of the wards and areas near the doctors' duty rooms in LNJP Hospital are filled with water. There are pits and ditches nearby that become breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Doctors are nurses have also contracted dengue, and nothing is done," said a senior resident doctor at the hospital.
Government hospitals in general were less burdened by dengue patients. But some of their staff and junior interns have been diagnosed with the disease. "The hospital's general medicine and paediatric wards are filled with dengue patients," said a source at LNJP Hospital. Three junior intern doctors were admitted to the general ward but were discharged after treatment.
In the adjacent Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital, no regular dengue patients were reportedly admitted. But the staff members themselves were affected with the disease. Staff nurse Mary Thomas and paramedical staff of the hospital Narendra Kumar are undergoing treatment for dengue. The Capital saw a sudden rise in the number of dengue cases.
"The number of dengue cases is on a rise. But considering that October is a time of the year when dengue generally spreads fast because of the prevalent weather conditions, the number of dengue cases are lower than last year," said N.K. Yadav, chief medical officer of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). The number of cases could show a downward trend once winter sets in, Yadav said.
Last year, around 1,000 dengue cases were reported in the Capital. This season, on an average, 18- 20 cases have been reported everyday for the past few days, Yadav said. Two people have succumbed to the disease this year a 15-year-old boy who died on October 23 at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and a nine-year-old boy who died last week at LNJP Hospital.
An official of Dr Dang's, a pathological laboratory, said: " All the numbers that the MCD has been quoting is only of those cases which have been confirmed in government hospitals.
But if you go to any private hospital, you will see the number of patients affected by dengue is much greater." In the meantime, the MCD has intensified measures to prevent the spread of the disease and has been conducting fogging operations in various areas, officials said.
neetu.chandra@mailtoday.in
