Malaria spreads tentacles; hospitals ill-prepared

KANPUR: Cases of malaria are rising. More then 30 patients of falciparum malaria are being treated in the district hospitals. Also, five deaths were reported in past 15 days.
As many as 24 cases of falciparum malaria and vivax were reported in the private and government hospitals within 24 hours on Wednesday.
It is worth mentioning that the government had planned to conduct door-to-door campaign and also decided to provide anti-doses of malaria and dengue in all the government hospitals.But nothing like that happened.
"No campaign was done in our area between July and September. No health official or the CMO's rapid response team came to guide us regarding the prevention of malaria," said Aarti, a resident of Jajmau.
Shanti Devi of Derapur, Ashok Kumar Singh of Akbarpur, Ram Pratap Shukla of Devari Buzurg, Shambhu Nath Yadav of Chamanganj and many others uttered similar words.
No initiative was taken by the rapid response team to educate the people in any locality in the city or rural areas.
Health officials said they have sufficient stock of 'arsinate', which is given to patient suffering from 'Falciparem' malaria. On the other hand, sources said that dates of all the stocked medicines have been expired weeks back. The new stock was distributed among the community health centres (CHCs) and public health centres (PHCs). Despite knowing majority of malaria patients will come to Ursula or Lala Lajpat Rai Hospital, the health authorities had sent the fresh stock of 'arsinate' to small dispensaries, where lesser number of patients go for treatment.
Sources said that poor condition of laboratories at the district hospitals and incorrect reports are prompting patients to go to private pathologies. The poor condition of the laboratory at Ursula Horsman Hospital is a case in point. There is no proper detection kit. The blood samples are not collected hygienically and properly.
Chief medical officer Jai Singh had claimed at the inset of monsoons of separate wards in the district hospitals for malaria patients. The chief medical superintendents of the district hospitals said that there are no separate wards for such patients.
Dr AK Nigam, chief medical superintendent (CMS) of UHM Hospital said that no special beds are there for such disease. He added that there are a fixed number of beds which are secured for emergency cases.
Dr CS Singh, CMS of LLR Hospital and Dr Athar Singh of KPM Hospital denied of having special beds for malaria or dengue patients.
The authorities of the district officials claims of having good stock of 'chloroquine' and 'quinine' but no proper stocks of 'arsinate', which is a compulsory drug for malaria.