Monitoring committees a waste of time: officials
CDGL’s health officials feel 'ministers would be more useful informing constituents of preventive measures’.
LAHORE:
The City District Government of Lahore (CDGL)’s health officials have criticised the chief minister’s dengue monitoring committees, suggesting that the committees would be more productive if the MNAs and MPAs they comprise educated their constituents about preventive measures rather than visit hospitals.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif set up around a dozen such committees of MNAs and MPAs elected from Lahore on Saturday with the mandate of visiting dengue patients in hospital.
The city health officials said the MNAs and MPAs should be travelling to their constituencies to inform citizens about simple measures they could take to lessen the risk of getting infected with dengue.
“The Health Department should have briefed the chief minister on how to combat the dengue virus instead of presenting him with ideas for photo sessions which might exaggerate the public’s anxiety about the dengue virus,” said one official. “All the MPAs and MNAs are doing in the hospitals is distracting doctors.”
They said small restaurants often threw their waste water on the roads at closing time, which left pools of stagnant water that could serve as breeding sites for dengue mosquitoes.
People often left freshly-watered potted plants outside their houses, again providing dengue mosquitoes a potential breeding site.
And people often gathered on the pavements for discussions in the evening, which was the time of the day that most people are bitten by dengue mosquitoes.
The city health officials said that just by discouraging their constituents from following these three practices, the committees would be doing more valuable work than visiting hospitals.
They said that the CDGL had not been provided the funds to print basic information pamphlets on the dengue virus and distribute them across the city.
They said another issue that had to be addressed was that junior doctors who first received new dengue patients seemed to have little knowledge of the virus and how to treat it.
“Every doctor has read about the symptoms of dengue but not many can tackle them well,” said one official.
But Dr Umer Farooq Baloch, the executive district officer (Heath), said that the monitoring committees and the city district government were working well together. He said that the rate of dengue infections had started to drop because of the drop in temperature.
Out of a total 1,756 dengue cases reported in Punjab, 1,521 are in Lahore, including 142 in Lahore and 15 in other districts reported in the last 24 hours. So far 1,599 patients have recovered from the virus and been discharged from hospitals in the province. No deaths have been reported.
CM reviews dengue plan
The chief minister presided over a meeting on Sunday to review dengue control measures. In briefings by officials of the monitoring committees and Health Department, he was told that the epidemic is under control and free platelets separation kits were being provided to patients who needed them.
The monitoring committee officials said that the MNAs and MPAs visited various hospitals and were satisfied with their treatment facilities. They said that no dengue patient is in serious condition and every hospital has a sufficient stock of platelets kits.
Sharif directed the elected representatives to continue their hospital visits and directed the health secretary to ensure hospitals have sufficient supplies to treat patients.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 1st, 2010.
The City District Government of Lahore (CDGL)’s health officials have criticised the chief minister’s dengue monitoring committees, suggesting that the committees would be more productive if the MNAs and MPAs they comprise educated their constituents about preventive measures rather than visit hospitals.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif set up around a dozen such committees of MNAs and MPAs elected from Lahore on Saturday with the mandate of visiting dengue patients in hospital.
The city health officials said the MNAs and MPAs should be travelling to their constituencies to inform citizens about simple measures they could take to lessen the risk of getting infected with dengue.
“The Health Department should have briefed the chief minister on how to combat the dengue virus instead of presenting him with ideas for photo sessions which might exaggerate the public’s anxiety about the dengue virus,” said one official. “All the MPAs and MNAs are doing in the hospitals is distracting doctors.”
They said small restaurants often threw their waste water on the roads at closing time, which left pools of stagnant water that could serve as breeding sites for dengue mosquitoes.
People often left freshly-watered potted plants outside their houses, again providing dengue mosquitoes a potential breeding site.
And people often gathered on the pavements for discussions in the evening, which was the time of the day that most people are bitten by dengue mosquitoes.
The city health officials said that just by discouraging their constituents from following these three practices, the committees would be doing more valuable work than visiting hospitals.
They said that the CDGL had not been provided the funds to print basic information pamphlets on the dengue virus and distribute them across the city.
They said another issue that had to be addressed was that junior doctors who first received new dengue patients seemed to have little knowledge of the virus and how to treat it.
“Every doctor has read about the symptoms of dengue but not many can tackle them well,” said one official.
But Dr Umer Farooq Baloch, the executive district officer (Heath), said that the monitoring committees and the city district government were working well together. He said that the rate of dengue infections had started to drop because of the drop in temperature.
Out of a total 1,756 dengue cases reported in Punjab, 1,521 are in Lahore, including 142 in Lahore and 15 in other districts reported in the last 24 hours. So far 1,599 patients have recovered from the virus and been discharged from hospitals in the province. No deaths have been reported.
CM reviews dengue plan
The chief minister presided over a meeting on Sunday to review dengue control measures. In briefings by officials of the monitoring committees and Health Department, he was told that the epidemic is under control and free platelets separation kits were being provided to patients who needed them.
The monitoring committee officials said that the MNAs and MPAs visited various hospitals and were satisfied with their treatment facilities. They said that no dengue patient is in serious condition and every hospital has a sufficient stock of platelets kits.
Sharif directed the elected representatives to continue their hospital visits and directed the health secretary to ensure hospitals have sufficient supplies to treat patients.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 1st, 2010.