There is a marked jump in the outpatient inflow at the three major hospitals -- Gandhi Hospital (GH), Osmania General Hospital (OGH) and Fever Hospital. After a sluggish start, the hospitals have begun responding to patient influx.
For swine flu patients, Fever Hospital authorities have equipped an isolation ward to hold 70 patients (40 males and 30 women).
To manage critical patients, 12 exclusive isolation beds have also been set aside. To reduce workload at Gandhi Hospital, the facility has started receiving referrals.
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The hospital has also started testing 30 swab samples daily of suspected swine flu cases from IPM at its virology lab. The outpatient flow here is between 900 and 1,100 per day.
“We have 32 patients under treatment for swine flu. Of them, 15 have tested positive, while the results of the others are awaited. All of them are healthy persons and are responding well to treatment. Persons with co-morbid conditions should be very careful,” said Fever Hospital superintendent Dr. K. Sankar.
So far, in January, OGH doctors collected 196 swab samples out of which 32 have tested positive for H1N1.
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“We lost three patients. All of them had asthma, high BP and sugar. One woman had post-pregnancy diabetes and BP and another had a failed liver. We are struggling to revive patients with co-morbid conditions,” said OGH superintendent Dr. C. G. Raghuram.
OGH can provide treatment to 18 swine flu cases at a time. “We have 10 patients of which five have tested positive. We have enough drug stocks,” Dr. Raghuram added.
At Gandhi, authorities have started Influenza like Illness (ILI) clinics to segregate suspected swine flu patients. On its first day, close to 300 patients were screened and 26 swab samples were collected for testing. The hospital already has 30 swine flu patients under treatment.
“The deaths here have occurred because patients were brought in a critical condition. Some of them are dying before we can even give them ventilator support. We have five ventilators and they are sufficient,” said Dr. Narasimhulu, swine flu coordinator, Gandhi Hospital.
Three govt. facilities segregate isolation wards, ILI clinics and undertake testing of swab samples