Aishwarya Iyer
Chennai:
In the wake of swine flu claiming eight lives in Tamil Nadu alone, general physicians in Chennai seem clueless on the seriousness of the disease becoming an epidemic.
In India, the number of affected patients has touched 13,000.The Rajiv Gandhi Government General hospital (tower 2) is the central place in Chennai where swine flu patients are treated.But the hospital has not taken any additional measures to restrict the contagious spread of the virus. The wards into which the patients are admitted or the hallways surrounding them are not cleansed regularly. But most importantly, the hospital authorities are not paying attention to quarantine measures, with no strict entry restrictions forpatients or visitors.
The city corporation’s tactic of fighting the virus seems to be by establishing camps in high risk “entry points” like Egmore and Central railway stations and the Koyembedu Bus Terminal to screen people for possible infection and provide preventive pills.
The authorities stationed there during their shift are often sloppy in their approach. Also, the camp timings, which are from 8 am to 6 pm, do not meet the needs of the current situation. At the Egmore railway station, a frequent traveler Abeetha Govindarajan, working as manager in SBI, said, “Most people who return from work or even travel outside the city, usually come back at around seven. By that time, the camp is shut. Even patients having cold and fever cannot procure preventive pills. Also, no pamphlets are being widely distributed in and around these areas on awareness of the disease or any measures are being announced. It’s getting scary to see an increase in the number of people coughing.”
Although civic authorities are on the lethargic side, the schools have braced themselves up to tackle any possible outbreak. Right from providing children with presentations on preventive measures to arranging regular health checkups, they are going to great lengths.
Jayshree Shankaran studying in DAV Gopalapuram said, “We were told to cover our mouths and noses in public places and also to get immediately checked for symptoms in swine flu camps in case of fever or cough. We were also given pamphlets to take home.”
While on the one hand, the government hospitals are stocking themselves up with medicines, the general physicians are being lax in this regard. Since a person will usually approach a general doctor first to get cold or fever treated, this level of ignorance is surprising.
One main general physician of VHS, who is stationed for most part of the day, was ignorant about the growing number of swine flu cases in the city and tentatively announced that it was caused due to mosquitoes.
The general consensus is that more effective measures needed to be implemented, before the flu claims more lives or affects the citizens further.
