Recent death of Tharali MlA Magan lal Shah due to Swine flu and late arrival of his swab sample report from Delhi has exposed the pathetic condition of the health system of Uttarakhand. The fact that the in spite of having three Government medical colleges, the State is yet to have a molecular laboratory where samples of suspected patients of swine flu can be tested.
The H1 N1 ( virus of swine flu) had taken 20 lives last year and shockingly the swab sample reports of all these patients came after their death. In August last year the health advisor to the Chief Minister, Dr Navin Balooni had declared that a swine flu laboratory would be set up in the GDMC hospital. He even claimed that process of tenders for lab is complete. However after more than four months of the declaration the proposed lab is yet to come up. What is more interesting that the administration of the GDMC don’t know anything about plan to start the lab.
Repeated attempts made by this correspondent on phone of the health advisor failed. The Principal of the GDMC Dr Pradip Bharati Gupta said that the college has sent a proposal to the state administration for setting up swine flu lab.
What is more intriguing is that the Srinagar Medical College has all the equipment needed for a swine flu lab but in absence of necessary clearance and lack of trained staff, these expensive machines are not being used.
The state administration had earlier planned to shift the machines of swine flu laboratory from Government Medical College, Srinagar to Dehradun but it was cancelled due to the fear of wear and tear.
At present the samples of suspected patients of the disease are sent to National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi due to which the arrival of reports is delayed. The NCDC is so packed up with samples of suspected patients these days that the process of tests and sending the reports is taking unusually more time. The delay in arrival of reports of these cases has resulted in a situation where either the patients dies or gets recuperated from the disease by the time the report arrives.