Nursing students extend a help hand

Respond to PMC appeal, help in treatment of dengue, chikungunya patients at Naidu, Rajiv Gandhi hospitals

There has been a surge in the number of dengue and chikungunya patients in Pune city over the last couple of weeks. Dengue and chikungunya patients are treated at the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) run Naidu Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Hospital. PMC’s health department been facing a shortage of nurses at Naidu as well as Rajiv Gandhi hospitals, due to the sudden increase in number of dengue and chikungunya patients in the last 2–3 weeks. The health department had appealed to nursing colleges in the city to send their nursing students to help at PMC hospitals. Five nursing colleges have responded and they have sent 124 nursing students to help at Naidu and Rajiv Gandhi hospitals to treat dengue and chikungunya patients for 15 days.

PMC health department head Dr S T Pardeshi said, “In the month of August, as many as 119 chikungunya patients were found in the city, and the figure is increasing. Dengue patients too have been increasing since the last three weeks in the city. We have adequate stocks of medicines for both dengue and chikungunya. We are treating dengue patients at Naidu Hospital, but since last week we are treating dengue patients at Rajiv Gandhi Hospital as well. But we are facing a shortage of nurses to take care of dengue and chikungunya patients. So we wrote to Bharati Vidyapeeth Nursing College, Dhareshwar Nursing College, Poona Hospital Nursing College, Sadhu Vaswani Nursing College, Deccan Education Society College and Tilak Maharashtra Nursing College, to send their students for 15 days to help to treat dengue and chikungunya patients at Naidu and Rajiv Gandhi hospitals. Five out of the six nursing colleges responded to our appeal and have sent their students to our hospitals. Bharati Nursing College sent 30 students, Dhareshwar sent 25 students, Deccan Education sent 15 students, Sadhu Vaswani sent 24 students, and Poona Hospital Nursing College sent 20 students to help at Naidu and Rajiv Gandhi hospitals, in treating dengue and chikungunya patients. We are extremely grateful to managements of these nursing colleges for sending their students to help in treating patients. All these 124 nursing college students are well trained so we assigned them at Naidu as well as Rajiv Gandhi hospitals. These nursing students will work under doctors and ensure that patients take medicines on time, saline and other duties. They are working voluntarily, and will serve patients for the next 15 days. All of them work from 9 am to 6 pm. We have decided to give the students certificate of appreciation from the PMC health department, in return for their service and assisting doctors in communicable disease treatment.”

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Originally published on The Golden Sparrow