news details |
|
|
| Swine flu and official lies | | |
Everyone in Jammu and Kashmir who has anything to do with the departments of general health ranging from the Chief Minister to the community medical officer in villages is seeking to repeatedly reassure all of us that there is absolutely nothing to worry about the spread of swine flu. This is what precisely India’s health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had been doing ever since the outbreak of this deadly pandemic and in a short span of time has ended up counting 19 deaths in the country. In Jammu and Kashmir the enthusiasm is much higher in telling people not worry about H1N1 spread. Last week, the day Chief Minister Omar Abdullah made such an assurance in the Legislative Assembly that State is geared up for the challenge and two Ministers –Health Minister Sham Lal and Medical Education Minister Rajinder Singh Chib –addressed a ‘crowded’ press conference in Srinagar to ‘allay confusions’ about the swine flu and publicise the precautionary measures, the same day one of the suspects tested positive in Jammu. One fails to understand what does the Chief Minister, his two Ministers and a battery of other health officers are seeking to assure the people of Jammu and Kashmir. While the swine flu has pressed a panic button across the country, schools are being shut, corporate meetings are being cancelled and even weddings are being put off, Jammu and Kashmir is yet to acquire testing facility for the infectious disease. Union Health Minister Azad had to have tongue in check last week when country’s first swine flu victim Pune based Nida Sheikh’s family asked him to apologize for remarks that she may have further spread the virus. The family wrongly indicted Azad he was very right in saying that the girl died due to late diagnosis and in the process of shifting from hospital to another (for being sure about the infection) she may have come into contact with many others. Imagine the case scenario in Jammu. In view of no facilities available in the town, or anywhere else in the town, the samples are sent for examination to already overburdened National Institute of Communication Diseases in Delhi and one simply has to wait for three to four days for the laboratory reports. Given the spate of this pandemic in many parts of country, can the Chief Minister or his Ministers explain how safe it is for anyone to wait for four days to get to know whether he has swine flue infection or not. One has to pray and thank to God only that intensity of spread of flu is not that fast in Jammu, even as 22 suspects have been reported. The Government and its health authorities have simply left the patients to the mercy of Gods. Isn’t it a shame that all 22 suspects have been returned home and advised to stay in isolation till their test reports are received? Leave the suspects aside, even the lone positive tested case has been returned home. Now in this case what is the advice of the Chief Minister and his Ministers to the parents of the girl who have tested positive? People are running away from swine flu affected persons and the government is just throwing them away. These claims about no “swine scare” and “complete preparedness” are all lies and it is high time government shunned these political statements and come up with measures on diagnosis, treatment and prevention of swine flu.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
