Monday, September 28, 2015

Dengue Epidemic: Why are we unable to walk the talk?

Like every year, its again time for another dengue epidemic. Isn't it really surprising how we repeat history over and over, suffer from the same illness every year. Media highlights it, politicians and bureaucrats are called upon and then starts the "blame game"...

Its the same story, hospitals get packed with patients, lack of beds, patients get shunted among various hospitals when they are critically ill before they succumb to death. And we cannot even imagine how the parents of a 7 year old feel when they witness their child going through such pain. Horrifying..

We (Physicians) cannot increase the capacity of hospitals after a certain extent, there are already two sometimes three patients occupying a single bed. 

So as healthcare providers, what can we do about it?

As physicians, one of our responsibilities is to teach. We must create awareness and educate laypersons about this disease. This can be by various mediums like television or organising community workshops. We all do get apprehensive during epidemics when issues are sensationalised. It is again our duty to do some "COMMUNITY EMERGENCY MEDICINE" here. 

In my opinion, a bulk of this problem can be solved by following simple measures like Community Participation/ Education and just following the treatment guidelines

Unnecessary admissions for mild infections are not justified, these can be managed as outpatients. Again this needs community education and participation of laypersons.







Check out the podcast and show notes (dengue fever)
This is a review of "Guidelines for the management of Dengue", minimum that all of us should know.







If you want to read more on how all of us can work together and prevent these deadly epidemics, then check out this awesome link 


Prevention is better than cure

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