State health and family welfare (H&FW) minister, P. Paiwang Konyak-led Dengue Response Team (DRT), which was constituted on Wednesday, would hold meetings from time to time till and monitor dengue situation in Dimapur till disease is contained.
According to DIPR, the team was constituted at an emergency meeting convened by the health minister on Wednesday to take stock of the surge in dengue cases in Dimapur. The meeting was attended by district administrations of Dimapur and Chümoukedima, government medical officials, doctors from private hospitals and other line departments
At the meeting, issues related to dengue were highlighted by DCs of Dimapur and Chümoukedima, medical superintendent and chief medical officer Dimapur and also doctors from private hospitals including the president of Nagaland private doctors’ association.
Under the initiative of the health minister, the meeting came up with standard operating procedure (SOP) for addressing the issue. As a way forward, it was decided to constitute DRT with health minister P Paiwang as the chairman and CMO Dimapur as member secretary and members comprising of C&S, H&FW, DCs, CP, principal director H&FW, MS, DMC administrator, members from private doctors’ association.
Health minister also directed activation of district task force immediately.
The meeting decided to arrange contingency plan for patients requiring admission and treatment with regard to dengue cases.
In this regard, CISHR and district hospital Dimapur agreed to keep 140 beds and 40 beds respectively.
It was also decided that Chümoukedima police hospital would be activated by September 21.
With regard to manpower requirement, the health minister assured that the government would look into the issue immediately.
Further, the meeting decided to activate a control room at the directorate of H&FW for getting the latest updates of dengue cases across the state and Dimapur in particular.
Several doctors stressed on the need for source reduction/ preventive measures as the best weapon for mitigating dengue cases.
In this regard, the meeting decided that massive awareness campaigns and cleanliness drives with active participation of the community would be carried out with the initiative of the DCs and health officials.
With regard to platelets, health practitioners informed that even if a young patient’s platelet count goes down to as low as 25000 but no bleeding and co-morbidity cases, blood transfusion was not required.
Paiwang informed that presently Dimapur district hospital has one blood segregation machine while another one to be activated within a few days. He said CISHR and Kohima district hospital have one each.
Health minister has appealed to the citizens of the state specially from Dimapur not to travel from one place to another till the dengue situation becomes normal.
As authorised by the state chief minister to take stock of the flood situation at Dimapur, Paiwang was briefed on the issue by DC Dimapur and DMC administrator.
Paiwang suggested coming up with immediate action plan to be taken up with the government.
With regard to encroachment hampering drainage systems, the minister suggested appraising the government in the form of a report.
Dengue under control in Mon: Paiwang
State health minister, P. Paiwang Konyak, has disclosed that dengue was under control in Mon district, saying he was in constant touch with MS and CMO of Mon district hospital with regard to dengue updates.
In an official acknowledgement note, DC Mon Ajit Kumar Verma and MS district hospital Mon Dr. Mereninla Senlem, on behalf of the hospital management committee (HMC) and district hospital Mon expressed gratitude to health minister for taking keen interest in improving the health care delivery system of Mon DH.
The note stated that minister personally visited the hospital on August 21 during the recent dengue outbreak to take stock of the situation. Under his initiative, HMC received additional manpower including four medical officers, 10 nurses and five lab technicians. The committee also thanked the minister for his initiative in donating a new complete blood count machine, which would be installed very soon after completion of medical formalities.