|
India scares
itself, then says do not press panic buttons
WSN Network
Typical of the way
issues of public concern are addressed in the country, India pressed
all panic buttons when swine flu hit its shores. The media went into
a panic mode, the hospitals went into a panic mode, the doctors
looked visibly panicked and the public health care system seemed
collapsing under the weight of a few hundreds lining up for tests.
Some doctors failed to even report for duty, some clinics were busy
shooing away patients with just a common cold, and thousands lined
up in front of clinics and hospitals for tests which did not even
have the ability to conduct them.
In its panic, India
forgot to press any other buttons except panic.
So health care
remains in doldrums, the public health emergency care system is
non-existent, and little preparation is there to tackle any
influenza, forget the swine flu.
Although the death
rate for seasonal flu is probably only around 1% of those affected,
when the numbers so affected run into millions, as they do in India,
the number of people who die will also be large. It is this
potential that generates fear and underlies the near-hysteria that
is now sweeping across western India and threatens to do so in the
rest of the country over the spread of the A(H1N1) virus.
But even as the
country swung between telling all the schools in one state to shut
down, before somersaulting and asking the schools to stay open, and
the media, having spread the scare, asked the people not to panic,
saner voices of top health care activists working among the people
went unheard.
Some of the top
names like Dr. Mohan Rao, Prof. Rama Baru, Dr. Rajib Dasgupta, Prof.
Sanghmitra Acharya, Prof. K.R. Nayar, Prof. Ramila Bisht, and Dr.
Ritu Priya of the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, in a statement, slammed the hysteria
created by the media and the knee-jerk reaction from the Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare and asked people to understand that swine
flu is not more lethal than ordinary flu and dengue.
"It can be treated
like any ordinary flu unless there are complications that require
hospitalisation...Secondary and tertiary levels should be used for
confirmation and treatment alone and not for screening, as is being
done at present," they said.
They also saw
through the game of all the talk about involving the private sector
and said "there is no need for the government to open up testing and
treatment in the private sector."
"As public health
workers, we know that the private sector is diverse in quality and
competence. The situation therefore is ripe for unnecessary — and
expensive — testing for swine flu and unnecessary over-diagnosis and
treatment. This will not only lead to resistance to the only drugs
we have but widespread exploitation of people wrongly diagnosed to
have swine flu."
But there was
little sign that the media or the government was listening to such
sane opinion. The images in the media of people crowding around
doctors to get themselves examined for novel H1N1 influenza
demonstrate once again the poor information and preparedness that
India has in such moments of crisis.
Crowds are exactly
how the disease spreads, so large numbers of uninfected people
crowding around a doctor are likely to get infected by the few who
really have the illness and have come for the test.
What the government
failed to do was to immediately announce a public health emergency.
Most information dissemination is only through TV and newspapers,
and largely urban centric, instead of employing the public address
systems which go
through every ward
and panchayat.
Instead of setting
up testing stations at every primary health centre to avoid crowding
at bigger hospitals, crowds were encouraged for days to line up
before big hospitals. Home quarantine should have been the norm.
Hospitalisation should have been reserved for the poor who live in
crowded tenements and slums. Instead, things were happening the
other way around.
There is little
that can assure that once available,
India
will make available the vaccine to all who need it.
| |
What about stuff other than swine flu?
What kills
more people in India? Swine flu or typhoid, tuberculosis,
leptospirosis, diabetes, HIV, malaria? A host of other
infectious and non infectious diseases are flourishing in our
country. The apathy towards the basic issues in health care is
really appalling. Why are Indians afraid of swine flu alone? The
medical profession is busy and happy treating diseases,
confining to its own insulated and comfortable compartments.
When Indian medicare domain is discussing whether or not it is
ready to face the challenge of swine flu, it almost assumes as
if the country is equipped to face the threat of all other
communicable diseases.
There are not
adequate number of doctors, health care is ignored, and poor
sections of India live in a veritable museum of all diseases.
India
is the diabetic capital of the world, and is now trying to
overtake Sub Saharan Africa to win the first place in the number
of AIDS cases, malnutrition and environment-related infections,
which produce more morbidity and mortality than swine flu.
The
developed countries are worried since they have controlled all
infections by proper waste management, safe drinking water and
good nutrition for all and press the panic button the moment
they come across any one of them.
They would have
shown similar panic if typhoid, viral hepatitis, leptosirosis or
TB occur in much lesser numbers than we see in
India.
Why is India not similarly worried about these diseases which
kill several thousands annually? |
|
19
August 2009
|
Read Also
Your WSN