Amid rain, Delhi’s hospitals report increase in water-borne, GI diseases

At Holy Family Hospital, OPD and IPD numbers have doubled as compared to a regular day before monsoon.

According to Dr Sumit Ray, medical superintendent at the hospital, the number of gastrointestinal cases is not very high in critical care, and is only 4-5% of the total case load per day. “But in IPD we are seeing about 25-30 admissions per day when it was around 10 admissions per day before the monsoon kicked in,” he said.

He added that the symptoms have also been the same and that dehydration has been the main concern. “Due to dehydration, the organs get affected, especially the kidneys, which can lead to kidney failure. The message should be to keep consuming fluids in large quantities,” Dr Ray said.

He added, “The number of dengue and malaria cases are not very significant currently, but it will increase in the coming days.”

At Apollo Hospital, there have been patients with Hepatitis A. Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, senior consultant at the hospital’s internal medicine department, said, “Typhoid cases are being reported but they are not very high in number… viral infections, hepatitis, jaundice etc, are prominent.”

“With the shift from heat to humidity, one can land up with respiratory issues. Cooking food properly and drinking good quality water are the best ways to reduce risk of contracting such diseases,” Dr Chatterjee said.

At Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, an official from the medicine department said there has been an uptick in the number of gastrointestinal cases.

“Cases have surged in the last eight days. Even cases of malaria have increased and around 6-7 that of dengue were also reported in the last week,” said the official, on the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, at Hindu Rao Hospital, 17 dengue and 3 malaria cases have been reported in the last month.

Lok Nayak Hospital had 6 patients with jaundice, 4 with typhoid and 2 each with dengue and malaria as of Saturday.

The medical superintendent of the hospital, Dr Suresh Kumar, said there has been a surge in the number of patients coming to the OPD with gastrointestinal issues.

Regarding cases in Gurgaon, Dr Amitabh Parti, the director of internal medicine at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, said that skin allergies and a few cases of chickenpox/ herpes are also being detected. Dr Parti said that elderly and immunocompromised patients should receive flu shots and pneumococcal vaccine at this time of the year.