Every where everyone seems to be talking about the Corona virus.Sometimes I wonder how things are in the country.The rumour about the virus has been doing the rounds for sometime but we see no response from the public sector health advocates to take in the private health providers along.We on our own initiative printed out a nhs guideline and pasted it all over our hospital and alerted our community health team as well.We have sensitised our staffs to the science behind it.While the media was in an overdrive about the virus we have been extra careful with all fever with cough and respiratory symptoms.Our tamiflus are also flying out from our counter.
During these times one young man who had travelled to our town from Surat,which incidentally is a port presented with a high grade fever,respiratory symptoms and breathlessness with a normal X-ray and abg.They would not hear about admission and insisted we write some medicines and let them go home.We contacted the local government health authorities and they advised us to refer the patient to the medical college.The patient and the family would not hear of it and the apathy of the system was appalling .They were unprepared to say the least.He belonged to the populous market place in the region .They had a marriage in the family..I cannot even begin to imagine the magnitude of the impact it would have if it was Corona or even SARS.
It brought back memories of an old lady in Jharkhand who had multiple drug resistant tuberculosis and lived in the middle of the village with a large joint family and refused to take treatment.As dedicated as our boys were they would do everything sans falling at her feet to start medication.We tried getting in touch with the government functionaries,as sincere as they were they expressed their inability to do anything about it.
That was a bitter pill for us to swallow.
India”s public health system for most parts is non-existent.What can you say of a country where the main competition for the qualified doctors who have committed themselves to secondary care comes from the quacks.One can only go on in scenarios like this with a detached cynical attitude.
Qualified doctors are remembered after the patients have been through everything wrong health wise and then comes to your doorstep in a critical stage .I am increasungly dealing with multi-drug resistant infections ,mostly in sepsis by the time they come to us,
These cases are increasing by days.In the last one month or so I have had to pull together my medical team at least four times to update them on the changing clinical scenario and the need to be at it at a war-like footing.
India is a bomb waiting to explode.
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