Friction arises between two hospitals over swine flu | Visakhapatnam News

Visakhapatnam: There appears to be a conflict between two public hospitals regarding the treatment of swine flu cases. Authorities at King George Hospital (KGH) complain that the Government Hospital for Pulmonary and Communicable Diseases is reluctant to maintain swine flu cases with comorbidities (other disorders of the coinciding with the primary disease) and insists that KGH treat patients as it has super-specialists to treat these complex cases.

For its part, KGH fears admitting highly infectious cases of swine flu because they may cause an outbreak of H1N1 flu because the hospital's 1,300 beds is still overloaded with inpatients and outpatients and their badistants. Instead, the KGH authorities badured their counterparts in the thoracic hospital to send specialists whenever needed to treat comorbid cases. Technically, the government thoracic hospital, equipped with quarantine rooms, is more suitable for treating swine flu cases.

KGH Superintendent, G Arjuna, said, "I will write to the Director of Medical Education on this matter. The treatment of highly infectious diseases such as swine flu requires quarantine services, which do not maintain contact with other services, a thoracic hospital facility. Even though we have beds for swine flu and such cases of fever, it would be risky to treat them here, where thousands of other patients with non-infectious diseases are being treated. "

"We already treat pregnant women and children with swine flu. But for other regular swine flu cases, Chest Hospital's rooms are more suitable for the treatment of communicable and infectious diseases. They have the infrastructure and equipment required, including fans. We send our super specialist doctors, our anesthesiologist and general practitioners to the thoracic hospital whenever there is a case of swine flu with comorbidities, such as kidney or heart problems or diabetes. But despite all this mobilization of human resources, it seems that the hospital is reluctant to take complex cases of swine flu and wants us to deal with cases of comorbidity, "Dr. Arjuna told TOI on Thursday.

However, Dr. Sambasiva Rao, director of the government, said, "There is no misunderstanding between the two hospitals. We take the help of super-specialty doctors KGH and manage swine flu cases. Patients with comorbidities require the attention of super specialists, which we may not be able to do alone and therefore need the support of KGH. In addition, since the last two days, no patient with swine flu is being treated in our hospital. "

The superintendent of KGH stated that there was no place in KGH to build a separate quarantine block for infectious diseases such as swine flu. "The risk of the epidemic will be high if we keep all cases of respiratory and communicable diseases here with several cases of comorbidity coming from other districts and from private hospitals coming to us. We also carry out laboratory tests to confirm the swine flu. That all these complex cases be treated only at the designated thoracic hospital, "said Dr. Arjuna.