The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Call for professionalism in health sector

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 11, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Call for professionalism in health sector

Staff Reporter

Thiruvananthapuram: The State should invest in a proper vector surveillance and research mechanism as year-round monitoring of vector indices can help in epidemic prediction.

Better professionalism should be brought into public health management by an integrated approach so that the information provided by the scientific community can be put to practical use by doctors and health workers in the field, public health experts pointed out at a discussion on the on-going viral epidemic in the State here on Wednesday.

The State did not learn any lessons from the 2006 chikungunya epidemic.

Despite the availability of funds and human resources, the health system failed to tackle the crisis this year too because of supervisory lapses, a lack of understanding of the nature of the epidemic and the ad hoc manner in which the epidemic was managed, K. Vijayakumar, Professor of Community Medicine, Medical College, pointed out.

Disease surveillance and vector surveillance was not up to the mark and hence epidemic prediction and preparedness remained in books, he said.

Doctors in the field were not oriented towards epidemic management and though the Health Department drew up a treatment protocol, this failed to reached physicians in the periphery.

There was confusion among doctors, which led to diagnostic delay, different and often unnecessary prescription. The referral linkages were a failure right from the sub-centre level and hence many physicians in rural areas had no idea when patients came back complaining of excruciating joint pain, Dr. Vijayakumar said.

Supervisory lapses were a major factor that affected epidemic management.

All peripheral institutions were asked to procure medicines through local purchase but the doctors did not favour bulk purchase for fear of administrative hassles.

There was no dearth of funds, but lack of utilisation guidelines led to delay in funds distribution and hence much of the funds remained unused.

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