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Dengue patients flock to Negombo Hospital
Full-up — Negombo General Hospital is overflowing with dengue patients.
With a dengue explosion in the country, which will send the disease numbers sky-rocketing this year, suspected dengue patients, both adults and children, are streaming into the Negombo Hospital, the Sunday Times found on a visit on Friday.
Negombo hospital: A sea of patients wherever you look. Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
Not only are the 17 beds in the Centre for the Clinical Management of Dengue and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever occupied with both adults and children but also 30 of the 63 beds in the female medical ward and 40 of the 63 beds in the male medical ward are occupied. Half of the 60 cots in the two units of the paediatric ward are also accommodating children suspected to be afflicted by this virus.
Doctors and nurses are stretched to their limits but they are battling on, we found, while patient admission numbers are so high that there are two patients on a bed. The throng to get ultrasound scanning to check for leakage of fluid which would be a sign that the patient is going into the critical phase of Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) is growing each day, while the blood tests needed to keep track of the platelet count and haematocrit are mounting.
Patients are drawn to the Negombo Hospital because of its record of treatment, especially after the setting up of the Dengue Centre under the direction of Consultant Paediatrician Dr. LakKumar Fernando, with the other Conusltant Paediatrician Dr. Anura Jayasinghe and Consultant Physicians Dr. Suresh Mendis and Dr. Champa Dharmasena and staff working in tandem to ensure that any dengue patient who walks into the hospital will go home after recovery.
Pointing out that the Negombo Hospital’s catchment area seems to be Negombo as well as a large number of other areas including the Colombo District the North Western Province Medical Superintendent Dr. Champa Aluthweera told the Sunday Times that her staff including those in the Radiology Department were carrying out a Herculean task. They are going about their work to save lives, enduring long hours and staff shortages, without a murmur.
Commending Health Services Director-General Dr. Palitha Mahipala for paying a visit to see the situation himself on the night of November 4, she said that the very next day he sent 45 student nurses to ease the burden of the nursing staff, 10 beds and an ultrasound scanner.
“We have been assured of continuing support from the Health Ministry to meet the challenge of treating such a large number of dengue patients,” added Dr. Aluthweera.
At the Dengue Centre, a little brother and sister are in beds next to each other, while their mother has been discharged only on Friday morning.
“This family is from Wennappuwa,” a relative said. When asked about their plight, the relative said that although they kept their home and environs clean and free of mosquito breeding places, there is aland close-by with many teak trees. “The large teak leaves on the ground are ideal breeding spots during the intermittent rains,” she added.
The centre and other wards with dengue patients seem like a battle-ground. The Consultants and their juniors are busy while the nurses rush around checking how much fluid is being given both intravenously and orally to patients, measuring urine output and sending people for scanning. All the while, more patients are streaming in.
The answer to this dengue crisis is to control the mosquito, not when an epidemic stares the country in the face but throughout the year.
| Treatment tied up in red tape
At the Dengue Centre while doctors and nurses are making tremendous efforts to save the lives of critically-ill patients, ironically they also have to contend with bureaucratic red tape, the Sunday Times learns.  Dr. LakKumar Fernando “Although the foundation stone was laid three months ago for an essential ‘Isolation Unit’ for the Dengue Centre and the funds have been pledged by the Health Ministry for its construction, an official of the Western Provincial Health Ministry is obstructing it,” charged Head of the centre, Dr. LakKumar Fernando. “The Health Ministry has pledged Rs. 6 million for the Isolation Unit but the Western Provincial Health Secretary M.C.L. Rodrigo is insisting on ‘procedure’ — that construction work should be started only after all the monies are received by the Provincial Chief Secretary,” said Dr. Fernando, adding that when the Dengue Centre was built and equipped at a cost of Rs. 36 m. there were no such issues. The Dengue Centre which has international recognition for having the world’s lowest case fatality rate for this disease, has treated nearly 2,000 patients since it was opened on July 15, 2013. It was also responsible for the zero mortality of many more dengue patients admitted to the paediatric and adult medical wards of the Negombo Hospital as well, adds Dr. Fernando. Several telephone calls to Provincial Health Secretary Rodrigo went unanswered. |