Ludhiana, May 11
A general body meeting of the local branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) will be held at the IMA House, here, on May 12, to chalk out a strategy to increase interaction among the members of medical fraternity of the city.

This decision was reached at by the newly elected office-bearers and executive committee of IMA, in a meeting held here on Wednesday.

Giving details of the deliberations, the IMA secretary Dr Rajeev Gupta, and the press secretary, Dr Narotam Dewan, informed that it was decided to allow even non-members to attend the general body meeting but such doctors will have to give prior intimation.

According to Dr Gupta, the IMA president, Dr Arun Mitra, along with Dr Hardeep Singh, had met civil surgeon Dr Sat Pal Sharma to discuss ways and means to achieve better coordination of the representative body of doctors with the government health services and related health programmes. The crucial issue of female foeticide and pre-natal sex determination test was discussed at length in the meeting.

A deputation of the IMA also met the senior superintendent of police, R.K. Jaiswal, to apprise him with the increasing incidents of attacks on the medicos and to evolve some effective mechanism to deal with this problem, Dr Gupta added.

Ludhiana, May 11
"Excellence in nursing care is an important factor in patient care, in fact it could be as important as the physician himself." These observations were made by Robyn Kathleen Bullock, after conducting a series of interactions with nurses, physicians and the management of the Christian Medical College (CMC), here.

The main focus of her initiative was to implement the innovative nursing practices as per the "USA Magnet Recognition" model which was a benchmark certification for a health institution with respect to its excellence in nursing practices and strategies.

A post graduate in nursing, Robyn first came to CMC for research purpose during her masters nine years ago, and since then she had been coming regularly to India to conduct workshops and to impart her expertise and experience to the nursing fraternity here. She had also worked as a nursing coordinator with the Emmanuel Hospital Association.

She was specially invited here in February, and again, in May, by the CMC to contractualise the Magnet Recognition Model in this hospital. Dr John Abraham, principal, CMC, informed, "The management had felt the need to uplift the nursing standards of this institution which had gone down somewhat in the recent years. Nurse Robyn's familiarity with India and her valuable experience with Magnet made her the ideal choice for this purpose. This profession has witnessed large scale exodus and institutions have faced difficulties in retaining quality nurses."

According to Dr Abraham, CMC had already started implementing certain techniques such as compulsory nurse plans and processes in most of the wards, thus empowering nurses and making them more accountable in the treatment procedures. The overall emphasis was on improving inter-disciplinary relationship. To motivate nurses to improve their knowledge base, the hospital planned to provide nursing literature inside the wards, pertaining to that particular medical field. "A magnet core committee" had been formed to carry out monthly assessments of the program.

Interacting with media persons, Robyn was all praise for the medical fraternity in India where hospitals catered to a large number of patients within very limited resources. Passing on her commitments to fellow nurses on the approaching "Nursing Day", she admired their commitment for shouldering more responsibilities than their counterparts in the western world, especially under the prevailing circumstances where nurses tended to become mechanical.

The implementation of the Magnet Module under Indian conditions, she remarked, called for more respect for the nurses from the physicians because Magnet Studies had proven this professional relationship to be a critical factor in quality patient care.

Robyn was very satisfied with the response she has received from the senior physicians in CMC. Triza Jiwan, principal, College of Nursing, expressed her thanks to Robyn and endorsed her view that information exchange between different constituents of this profession should be encouraged.

Ludhiana, May 11
The health department here was taking all steps to ensure 100 per cent coverage of children in the age group of 0-5 years, for the next phase of pulse polio campaign that would be held on May 20.

The district immunisation officer, Dr Kuldip Kaur Sahni, while addressing a training programme for sector-level heads, emphasised on the need for strict supervision on polio booths, here, yesterday. He also advocated the need of supervision on the booths during the house-to-house visit of the field staff on May 21 and 22 to administer polio drops to the children who were not brought to booths for any reasons.

She said 990 booths would be put up in urban areas and another 1176 in the villages to provide polio drops to more than 5.50 lakh children in the district. The health department had formed 100 mobile teams of volunteers and 75 transit teams for coverage of railway stations and bus terminals.

Dr Sahni maintained that the field staff had been directed to focus on slum areas, particularly those inhabited by migrant population and brick kilns, which were considered more vulnerable to the crippling disease.

Ludhiana, May 11
On the concluding day of the asthma week, the department of pulmonary medicine at Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH), under the leadership of Dr Akashdeep Singh, organised a free respiratory diseases camp at Ambica International Yarn Factory on the Hambran Road here.

Besides free health check-up, inhalers and rota-caps were given to workers free of cost. A lecture was delivered to educate workers about the occupational hazards, especially on asthma.

Since the occupational incidence of asthma is around 10 per cent, such events are very important in the early detection and treatment of the disease, pointed out the doctors.

According to Dr Akashdeep Singh, statistics showed that the mega city, which is a pollution-ridden industrial town, further surrounded by fields where the residual crops are burnt after harvest, has shown an upward swing in the number of asthma cases over the past many years.

“This dangerous trend needs to be reversed and necessary preventive steps ought to be taken without any further delay,” he stressed.

During the week, the department of pulmonary medicine organised a series of activities, including asthma awareness and check-up camps as well as lectures for students and private practitioners of the city. An asthma diary was also made public by the CMCH during the asthma week.