New Delhi:
Delhi is now the hub of the swine flu outbreak, and one of the biggest problems in dealing with patients who had a severe case of the flu, is a basic lack of infrastructure in hospitals and nursing homes.
And this came as shock for the family of 24-year-old Umesh, who tested positive for H1N1, when they had to visit four hospitals within a span of four hours, because none of the hospitals had ventilators.
Umesh developed fever on December 8. A day later, he was admitted to a private hospital with breathing problems and high fever. Despite his symptoms, he was tested for H1N1 four days later.
On the sixth day, even when he tested positive, he was not put on Tamiflu. Instead, he was released by the hospital at midnight because he needed a ventilator to survive. The next four hours were a nightmare for the family. Four hospitals, none of them with ventilators.
"In Safdurjung hospital, we were told that there is this pregnant lady who just died. Doctors said she died because we could not provide ventilator on time. That night we saw the horrible system that was in place for what is supposed to be a national health crisis," said Pankaj Pathak, one of the relatives.
So far, 54 patients have died of swine flu in Delhi, and over 750 across the country. The government says most of them died because they reported late.
Clearly, that's just part of the story. Private sector hospitals are still unable to detect the disease. Worse, all designated hospitals meant to treat pandemic patients are still falling short of life support systems needed to handle critical patients.
Delhi has roughly 200 confirmed swine flu patients every day, but there are only 220 beds and just 88 ventilators.
In the second wave, larger number of patients are expected to test the infrastructure, especially because Delhi also caters to a huge influx of patients from the national capital region as well as states like UP and Haryana.
"We are persuading private hospitals to have more ventilators. Secondly, we have augmented our supply to 30 more ventilators. We have asked for additional staff to man swine flu wards," said J P Singh, Principal Health Secretary, Delhi.
A ventilator is the basic requirement for a swine flu patient who comes in at a later stage. There is almost no time left for the government to expand the public health system so that more patients like Umesh do not have to pay up with their lives for the lack of it.