Fevers go viral in Hyderabad: Cases being recorded in private and govt hospitals

Hyderabad: Hyderabad is unwell. Patients are streaming into outpatients wards of hospitals till as late as midnight, even as viral fevers have laid siege to the city’s populace at large, exposing the immanent fragility of the healthcare system of the city.

Be it government or private hospitals, people are waiting in long queues, patiently, anxiously, from early morning outside hospitals and clinics for their turn with a doctor, and the queues hardly thin right till midnight.

Dr Sanjiv Singh Yadav, secretary of Telangana Indian Medical Association, explained, “When one family member is affected, remaining members are likely to be inflicted soon too. This exposes the lack of awareness amongst people about the precautions they must take in case of viral fevers. We have witnessed mother, child and grandparents of a family visit us in turns within a fortnight. The sanitation and hygiene factors are highly compromised, due to which the spread is wide.”

In private hospitals, doctors say that outpatient wings are seeing more than 200 patients per day.

In single doctor clinics, often found in residential colonies and far-flung areas, there are at least 50 people waiting outside, waiting rooms are full, and overflowing, as the misery of ailments gets compounded – patients having to wait, patiently.

Across hospitals, cases of viral fever, dengue, chikungunia and typhoid are being recorded in very high numbers.

The combination of typhoid and dengue has also been registered in high numbers amongst school-going children.

Paediatricians say that they have to treat the child for dengue first, through which typhoid is also subsequently controlled.

The state government has instructed the Gandhi Hospital, the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) and the Fever Hospital to start evening outpatient departments.

These three general hospitals are seeing a major rush, where several patients are returning coming after they have had an initial treatment done from a private clinic or a quack, and the treatment failed.

At the Fever Hospital, extra counters were started for patients as there have been more than 2,000 patients coming to the hospital since the first week of September.

After the counters were started, the lines of patients continue to be huge, and a security guard had to be deployed to monitor the movement of patients towards each counter.

In a huge hall at the Fever Hospital, 10 doctors are seated huddled together, and they see patient after patient, without a break, for hours. Most of the patients have to wait outside in the compound, in direct sunlight without a shade, due to which there is a near perpetual pandemonium.

After tests are conducted, patients are asked to go to the pharmacy for medicines, where again, the queue is way too long.