The Hindu : Front Page : Mumbai calm, disciplined as it tackles swine flu

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Monday, Aug 10, 2009
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Front Page

Mumbai calm, disciplined as it tackles swine flu

Siddhesh Inamdar

Six BMC-run hospitals have been set up with screening and sample collection centres

Mumbai: A day after the first death in the city due to swine flu, Mumbai did not witness Pune-like scenes with worried people queuing up in large numbers outside government-designated hospitals to get themselves checked.

Meanwhile, a 28-year-old man admitted to the Hiranandani Hospital in Powai continued to be critical.

After Fahmida Panwala’s death on Saturday afternoon, the city administration announced that six BMC-run hospitals in the city would have screening and sample collection centres, with three in the western suburbs (Bhagwati, Siddharth and Bhabha) and three in the eastern suburbs (Agarwal, Rajawadi and Kasturba). Of these, there is admission facility available at Siddharth, Agarwal and Kasturba.

Panic palpable

On Sunday, the hospitals received about 60-70 patients each. Though people did not turn up in unmanageable numbers, panic amongst them was palpable. At Borivali’s Bhagwati Hospital, Kumar (35) came to get himself checked though he did not have a cough or cold. He had fever since Sunday morning. He admitted that he had decided to come to the hospital as he was scared after Reeda Shaikh’s death. “It could well be the routine monsoon fever,” he said.

There was also the curious case of Vishnu Dalvi (64) who came looking for a swine flu vaccine. His daughter-in-law and one-month-old granddaughter were to join his son in Saudi Arabia in September, and the travel agent had asked the two to get themselves vaccinated.

“The agent told me that if I don’t get them vaccinated, they will be stopped at the Saudi airport.” He was told by the doctor at the centre that no such vaccine was available for swine flu.

A senior doctor at the hospital said that it had a team of 11 doctors — six in-house and five from the Nair Hospital. She said patients were screened on the basis of three criteria: whether they had been abroad in the recent past, or to Pune or Satara, or had come in contact with a swine flu patient. If the patient fulfilled any of these criteria and showed strong symptoms, the throat swab was collected and sent to the Haffkine Institute, which then sent the results in 48 hours.

She said following the administration’s decision on Saturday, Tamiflu could be administered even before the patient tested positive. The patient need not get admitted till the result came, but the hospital advised patients whose swabs had been collected to stay indoors.

At Mulund’s Agarwal Hospital, the throat swab of a 17-year-old student of Nerul’s APJ School was collected. She was the only patient to be kept in the isolation ward. Though her result was awaited, doctors decided to admit her as a classmate of hers had tested positive and was admitted to Kasturba Hospital.

“Contrary to one’s expectations from a municipal hospital,” her mother said, “the doctors here are very humane and boosted mine and my daughter’s morale. The facilities at the hospital are good, and I’m in touch with my daughter as the doctors have let her keep her mobile phone. My only worry is that she will be the only person in the isolation ward at night.”

Ronald Olivera got his five-year-old soon for screening. The boy, Rojen, had a chronic lung problem and often needed to be given oxygen . Although the boy did not go to school, he had fever for the last three days and the family doctor advised the parents to get him checked for swine flu. Though the parents were happy with the hospital’s services, the mother opined that private hospitals should be allowed to do the testing as well, since Agarwal was too far for the family.

Media hype blamed

Agarwal’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Vinay Sabhahit said people had panicked due to the media hype and that mortality due to swine flu across the world was less than two per cent. He said that the civic administration and the Kasturba Hospital had assisted Agarwal with the logistics. The hospital had nine doctors at the screening centre and two on rotation at the isolation ward.

Siddharth municipal hospital in Goregaon witnessed a steady trickle of people wanting to test for swine flu. The hospital has a 20 bed isolation ward which opened on Saturday morning. An engineering student, was brought by her two roommates for a test. “We are scared that she has swine flu and since we share the same room we are worried,” said her friend who conceded that they had panicked after the death of two people. Till afternoon the hospital had already screened nearly 40 people.

At Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar, another student of Nerul’s APJ School came for testing. The 11-year-old boy’s mother said that she had decided to get him checked as a student from the school had tested positive. At Saturday’s parent-teacher meeting, many parents had said their children had fever, following which the school decided to shut down for a week.

Though there were more patients at Rajawadi than at Agarwal or Bhagwati, the hospital’s doctors assured them that all of them would be screened and appealed to them to be disciplined. As such, there were no scenes of chaos.

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