Senior doctors said that hospitals are filled with suspected dengue patients lying in wards whose blood samples have been ordered. They said that after a doctor takes the sample the nurses take about an hour to collect them and then it takes close to 30 minutes to submit the samples to the laboratory. They said that at the laboratory there is a number of blood samples so that the new samples are placed in a queue to be tested.
The doctors said by the time the pathologist gets the sample the composition has materially changed. They said that after three hours the blood platelets have been degraded and the normal platelet count cannot be deduced. They said that if the sample is tested within three hours than in case of a negative dengue result, the platelets would be normal, more than 150,000 platelets. However, they said, if this test is conducted after three hours then the count of platelets might be as low as 50,000.
They said that a large number of patients have been misdiagnosed because of the delay in testing of their blood sample.
The latest date of the Health Department states that out of a total 1,600 dengue patients in the Punjab, 1,379 are in the city. 194 additional patients have been brought into the city hospitals in the past 24 hours.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said, on Saturday, that the Health Department had set up special counters and help lines for the convenience of patients and district headquarters hospitals throughout the province.
A Health Department spokesperson stated that patients could register their complaints regarding facilities at public hospitals in the complaint cells set up in the offices of the Health Secretary and the Health Department director general.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 31st, 2010.
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