Dengue burden

IN the face of what is unfolding as one of the most virulent dengue outbreaks in recent history, the health infrastructure countrywide has been found to be both ill-prepared and ill-equipped to handle the rising numbers of patients needing medical attention. The surge of dengue, also called breakbone fever, in the past month has overwhelmed most hospitals and doctors in the region. Government hospitals in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh have been found wanting as severely affected patients with depleted platelet counts, across all ages, struggle to find proper beds and kits essential for tests and treatment. Stories of two patients having had to share a bed and hospital corridors crammed with patients with glucose drips depict the pathetic picture.

Such circumstances once more red-flag the inadequacies that assail the health system. Prominently painful are the lack of specialists and machines lying defunct or damaged in the public sector, especially in the rural and small-town facilities. While the Covid pandemic roused the authorities to the ills in the system and both the Central and state governments pledged to enhance health budgets to ensure top-class amenities for all, filling the gaping holes is still a work in progress. It is the common man and the poor who generally bear the brunt of this lackadaisical attitude. Betraying it is the absence of specialist doctors or technicians in many hospitals, even though dengue has of late become a regular phenomenon during the monsoon. That the necessary medical machines are gathering dust in some places is a criminal waste of scarce resources.

Adding to the woes of the victims of the mosquito (Aedes aegypti) bite-induced disease is the fleecing indulged in by many a private facility and lab. Despite the cap on the prices for tests and blood units with SDPs (single donor platelets) imposed by the Punjab Government in the wake of the outbreak, reports of charging double or more call for strict and deterrent action. At the same time, people must take the preventive step of keeping their surroundings clean and dry to prevent mosquito-breeding.

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