HEALTH

Cut neonatal care cost: Docs
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh July 30
Neonatal intensive care units are trying to serve very sick neonates without brain damage. It involves elaborate and expensive facilities and a dedicated team of administrators, doctors, nurses and technologists. This was stated by Dr O.N. Bhakoo, former head of department, Paediatric and Neonatology, PGI, Chandigarh.

Dr Bhakoo was speaking at continuous medical education programme, (CME), organised by Cosmo Hospital here on Saturday.

The eminent paediatricans and gynaecologists attended the meeting held here. Out of morbid children, 75 per cent were born pre-maturely, said Dr Bhakoo.

However, the challenges of improving the quality of care while keeping the cost affordable was the need of the hour as infrastructure needed huge investments.

The optimum utilisation of facilities at hospitals with reduction in hospitalisation duration could reduce the cost of neonatal care. The cost of neonatal care was increasing tremendously and with the high cost of care increased the expectations and accountability of care provider, said Dr Bhakoo.

Sharing the costly equipments by hospital and hiring them at the time of requirement could be a step towards reduction in the cost of treatment, said Dr Bhakoo.

As the major cause of neonatal deaths was hospital-aquired infection, the early discharge for home and involving mother care of child as early as possible could solve the purpose, said he.

The CME was chaired by professor BNS Walia, former director, PGI.

Dr S Narula mentioning his experience in Cosmo Hospital highlighted the need of coordination between parents, obstetricians and paediatricians for maximising survival in low birth weight neonates.

Dr Ashish Dharmik discussed common surgical conditions, which could be detected before birth and hence managed appropriately.

Dr Sandeep Janjua, eye surgeon at Cosmo Hospital, highlighted the importance of early diagnosis of retinopathy of prematurity, a condition which could lead to blindness.

Dr Anish Gupta, ENT surgeon, presented the need of early diagnosis and management of hearing loss in newborns and need of universal screening of all newborns. 

Fewer doctors at ayurvedic dispensaries
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 30
The claims of the Chandigarh administration to promote ayurveda and homoeopathy notwithstanding, not all ayurvedic dispensaries in the city have doctors.

Out of the six ayurvedic dispensaries, two have been lying locked for the past over a fortnight as two doctors deputed there are on long leave. According to the director, health services, Dr M.S. Bains, Dr Madan Gulati and his wife, posted at the Sectors 24 and 37 dispensaries, are on a month’s leave.

The health department has only six doctors to run the dispensaries. If a doctor goes on leave, there is no other doctor to relieve him.

Besides, there are only five pharmacists. No pharmacist has been appointed at the Sector 37 dispensary for a year after the pharmacist deputed there retired last year.

The doctors have also been given the responsibility to visit the police hospital in Sector 26 once a week and the Burail jail once a month.

The situation at the homoeopathic dispensaries is even worse. Two of the five dispensaries are being run by pharmacists. The department argues that the pharmacists had the required degree to treat patients.

10 children hospitalised
Tribune News Service

SPORTS

Johny, Rahul steal the show
Both score hat-tricks for their teams
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 30
St Stephen’s Johny and New Public School’s Rahul Lornie stole the show today as both scored splendid hat-tricks in their respective semi-final matches during the ongoing under-17 Pre-Subroto Cup Football tournament. On the other side, their opponents went down without a whimper. Both matches held at Sector 37 GMSSS grounds, here.

In the first semi-final, St Stephen’s 45 team beat DAV Senior Secondary School-8 team 6-0 in a one-sided affair match.

Right from the beginning, Stephen’s had dominating proceedings over DAV team. Stephen’s opened their account during the 7th minute of the match through Angodha. Then came Johny, who with his precise dodging ability and fine distribution sense, scored three goals consecutively during 9 th, 27th and 35th minutes of the match.

Before the DAV squad could find a solution, it was Stephen’s Saket again, who dodging the defenders, just cracked into the scramble at the goal mouth twice and on getting the possession of the ball, wasted no time in just tapping the ball in to decide the final fate of the match. 6-0.

Another semi-final also saw that same fate, where Rahul Lornie of New Public School scored hat-trick during the 12th, 24th and 29th minute against the opponent Shishu Niketan School-22 team.

Maintaining the winning spree, New Public’s Pawan found nets again during the 40th minute to seal the final verdict 4-0 in favour of his team.

Carrom Championship
Gagandeep in quarterfinals

Chandigarh, July 30
First-seeded Gagandeep Singh secured a place in the first eight by comfortably beating Raj Kumar in the men’s pre-quarter final tie during the 17th Chandigarh State Carrom Championship. The championship is being held at St Stephen’s School, Sector 45, here.

While Gulshan, Farheen, Bhanu, Reena, Aakanksha, Sunidhi, Tuba and Anjali Taneja have sailed into the quarterfinals in the girls’ junior category, Kartik, Mukul, Talib, Naushad, Piyush Sood, Raj Kumar, Hassan and Md Saquib secured a place in the quarterfinals in the junior boys’ category.

Today’s results (pre-quarterfinal): Men's singles: Gagandeep Singh beat Rajkumar (20-8, 25-12), Asif Iqbal beat Piyush Sood (24-7, 25-4), Md Saquib beat Arif (25-4, 21-18).

Boys' singles (junior): Rajkumar beat Nikhil Grover (25-2, 25-6), Kartik beat Yishu Sharma (25-0, 25-0), Md Saquib beat Varun Sood (24-11, 5-25, 25-0), Md Talib beat Md Arib (17-13, 25-20), Mukul beat Tassavar Ali (25-11, 25-1), Md Naushad beat Ekansh Goyal (25-5, 25-05), Piyush Sood beat Md Wasim (25-1, 25-9), Md Hassan beat Manoj Thakur (25-0, 25-0).

Girls' (junior): Tuba beat Kudrat (25-10, 1-25, 16-15), Gulshan beat Prachi (25-0, 25-3), Farhin beat Neha (25-0, 25-0), Bhanu beat Harlin Sadana (25-1, 25-0), Aakanksha beat Khazanika (25-4, 25-7), Simridhi beat Gursheen (25-0, 25-0), Anjali beat Drishti (25-0, 25-0).

Women's singles: Tuba beat Amanjot (25-4, 25-10), Gulshan beat Kiran (25-0, 25-1), Farhin beat Bhanu (25-4, 7-11, 25-0), Reena beat Simridhi (15-16, 25-4, 21-11), Aakanksha beat Kirti (25-0, 25-0), Anjali Taneja beat Anjali Yadav (18-13, 16-13). — TNS

Dev Samaj thrash NPS, lift title
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 30
The hosts IS Dev Samaj Girls’ team clinched the winning title defeating New Public School, Sector 21 team 63-59 during the Shriman Ishwar Singh Memorial Basketball Tournament 2007 for girls.

The tournament was held at IS Dev Samaj Girls Senior Secondary School, Sector 21, here, today.

In this neck-to-neck fight, NPS team was leading by a narrow margin of 33-32 by the half time of the tie. After lemon break, Dev Samaj eves bounced back with much aggressive approach and seal the final verdict in its favour.

NPS’s Sushma was the highest scorer of the match scoring 22 points with five three- pointers. The second best contributor for the team was Manpreet who scored 12 points with the help of two three-pointers and Surbhi scored 9 points.

From the looser’s side, Savneet scored 21 points while Megha and Varsha scored 15 points each.

The joint director, CBSE, regional office, Panchkula DR Yadav was the chief guest on the occasion. He distributed prizes to the winners and the runners up team. The winning team were awarded Rs 7,100 while the loosing team were given Rs 5,100 as prize money.

Meanwhile, Digvijay Singh, who has been selected for India u-14 camp and Arjuna Awardee Suman Sharma were also honoured on the occasion.

Cricket
Sachit leads St Stephen’s to victory
Tribune News Service