Upgrade facilities to deal with swine flu cases: UT advisor tells states

Meanwhile,analysing the cases of deaths that have taken place in city hospitals,officials said that 33 per cent deaths had occurred within 6-12 hours of the patient’s arrival to the hospital,whereas 32 per cent deaths occurred within a day. About 35 per cent deaths were reported in PGIMER-12 and GMCH-32 within 2-3 days after the admission of the patients in these hospitals.

The deaths have occurred because of delay in starting the treatment,said Dr Aashish Bhalla from Department of Internal Medicine at PGI.

Mehra requested the states to upgrade the ventilator support and start treatment with Tamiflu at an early stage,immediately upon the onset of symptoms.

Professor Rajesh Kumar,head,School of Public Health,was of the opinion that sensitisation of private doctors and private lab persons and other NGOs should be done by the respective states to that patients are treated in time by the doctors. “There is a need to up scale the facilities in PGI-12 by making the provision of more ventilators and strengthening the infrastructure so that patients from Punjab,Haryana and Himachal Pardesh are accommodated for timely treatment in a premier institute like PGI,” said Mehra. To reduce the burden on PGI,GMCH-32 will get 12 ventilators soon,said a spokesperson of the UT Health department.

Five fresh cases reported
One Chandigarh resident and four residents of Punjab tested positive for H1N1 here today taking the total number of positive cases to 353 here. The patient from Chandigarh is a 24-year-old man from Sector 20. He is admitted at GMCH-32 and his condition is stable.