RML Hospital's unsung heroes in Delhi blast |  |
- RML Hospital's unsung heroes in Delhi blast
- Doctors' strike hits Maharashtra medical services
- Southeast Asia to give health issues more priority
- More Mumbai doctors strike work demanding safety
- Two days after blast, pain and prayers continue
- Rebalancing the nuclear debate through education
- Children better witnesses than previously thought
- Research on US nuclear levels after Fukushima could aid in future nuclear detection
- Over 50 percent deaths from non-communicable diseases: Azad
- Blast victims' kin ask politicians to stay off hospitals
| RML Hospital's unsung heroes in Delhi blast Posted: 10 Sep 2011 07:05 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 10 - They are the unsung heroes of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital - and their worth came to the fore when Delhi High Court blast victims started pouring in, carried by wailing ambulances Wednesday. They are the cleaners and porters of Sulabh International -- a non-government organisation that deploys 460 such people in shifts at RML alone - who were instrumental in bringing bloodied victims to speedy medical attention and ensuring hygiene in post-trauma care. 'We got a call from the police and scores of patients came in after 10.30 a.m.,' Sulabh International adviser Neeraj Kumar Singh told IANS. 'The ambulances stretched up to Mandir Marg. The porters were deployed to bring in victims to the trauma centre.' Thirteen people were killed and 95 injured when an explosives-rigged briefcase blew up at Gate 5 of the high court complex during the morning peak hour. RML is close to the blast site and many of the victims were rushed there. These cleaners and porters, hired by the hospital in 2003, also work round-the-clock to maintain hygiene and cleanliness in the emergency wards of the hospital, where the blast survivors have been admitted. 'There is no special training that we receive,' trauma centre cleaner Rajesh said. 'But we have to be strong and determined to attend to such cases of mass casualties.' The teenager said he remained calm as mangled and mutilated bodies were brought in. 'Some of them had their limbs hanging, some were bleeding profusely,' Rajesh said. 'The patients needed immediate care without further trauma -- that is all we knew.' Special hygiene had to be maintained for the grievously injured patients as the chances of infection seeping through their wounds were high. 'Open wounds, heavy bleeding and the presence of nails increase infection risk in emergency wards,' another worker, Mukesh, said. 'We have learnt over the years how to take care in such situations.' He has no memory of how... http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Doctors' strike hits Maharashtra medical services Posted: 10 Sep 2011 03:21 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Mumbai, Sep 10 - Medical services in Maharashtra were jolted Saturday as resident doctors in all government hospitals went on an indefinite strike to press for enhanced security and sharper surveillence on hospital premises, the doctors said. 'Over 3,000 resident doctors from all government hospitals across the state have joined the stir that began when a physically challenged doctor from Mumbai's Sion Hospital was assaulted by a patient's kin,' said Pankaj Nalawade of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors - from KEM Hospital. Patients at various hospitals were hard pressed to find a doctor. Department heads at various hospitals said that more than 50 percent of their scheduled surgeries had to be postponed. 'This is the ninth such incident this year,' Nalawade said while reiterating MARD's demand for better CCTV surveillence and security in hospitals. 'We keep voicing our concerns but it falls on deaf ears.' Angered by the death of a 10-month-old baby girl, relatives assaulted the on-duty resident doctor, Vishnu Dhadwad, at Sion Hospital Wednesday. His colleagues who tried to intervene were also beaten up. 'Dr. Vishnu, who is physically challenged, sustained bruises and a fractured right hand,' said Yogesh Pawar of MARD from Sion Hospital. 'Relatives of patients continue to beat up doctors every now and then. There is not enough security. This has to stop.' Around 400 doctors in Nagpur's government hospitals also joined the strike Saturday. 'Manhandling and assault of doctors should stop,' said Dr Bhausaheb Munde of MARD. 'The authorities concerned have to see to it that doctors are provided proper security.' Infant Sadia Siddique was brought to Sion Hospital Sunday for lower respiratory tract infection. According to the doctors, she was recovering well and was moved to the general ward. However, her condition deteriorated and she was put in the intensive care unit, where she died Wednesday. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Southeast Asia to give health issues more priority Posted: 09 Sep 2011 08:16 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Jaipur, Sep 9 - Health ministers and officials from 11 southeast Asian countries Friday resolved to give higher priority to key health issues like HIV-Aids, routine immunisation and nutrition in the region, a statement said. Delegates attending the 64th session of the World Health Organisation - Regional Committee for southeast Asia agreed on new strategic directions and passed resolutions on strengthening the community-based health workforce and the national essential drug policy. 'While 5 lakh children die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases in the region, about 10 million children are not covered by routine immunisation,' said the statement. The delegates adopted a resolution to make 2012 the year of intensification of routine immunisation in the region to increase and sustain immunisation coverage and organise an annual immunisation week in April. 'Seventy percent of the world's malnourished children reside in the SEA region. Many also suffer from several micronutrient deficiencies like iron and iodine,' the statement said. According to WHO, the region has the second highest burden of HIV in the world after sub-Saharan Africa with an estimated 3.5 million infected people. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| More Mumbai doctors strike work demanding safety Posted: 09 Sep 2011 04:30 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Mumbai, Sep 9 - Resident doctors of two other Mumbai hospitals Friday joined their counterparts at Sion hospital who are on an indefinite strike to protest aginst the assault on their colleagues by a patient's kin. 'Resident doctors of KEM and Nair Hospitals have also joined in the strike to support the doctor who was assaulted by a patient's kin,' said Pankaj Nalawade of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors -. Angered by the death of their 10-month-old baby girl, relatives assaulted on-duty resident doctors at Sion hospital Wednesday. Vishnu Dhadwad, who was treating the patient, was locked in a room and beaten up. 'Dr. Vishnu, who is physically challenged, sustained bruises and a fractured right hand,' said Yogesh Pawar of MARD from Sion Hospital. 'The doctors who tried to intervene were also beaten up,' he added. 'Relatives of patients beat up doctors every now and then. There is not enough security to protect the doctors. This has to stop.' Doctors also complained of repeated lapse in security provided to doctors outside each ward in these hospitals. 'This is the ninth such incident this year,' said Nalawade. 'We keep voicing our concerns, but they fall on deaf ears.' Only resident doctors have struck work. 'While we realise that other patients need to be attended to, we also want our concerns to be addressed,' Dr Pawar said. 'We are not only fighting for ourselves, but for the patients too.' Sadia Siddique, a 10-month-old baby girl, was brought to Sion Hospital Sunday for treatment of lower respiratory tract infection. According to the doctors, she had to be shifted to the paediatric intensive care unit as her condition deteriorated. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Two days after blast, pain and prayers continue Posted: 09 Sep 2011 03:33 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 9 - More than 30 people wounded in the Delhi High Court bombing that left 13 dead remained warded in hospitals Friday, with doctors saying four were in critical condition. All four were warded in the Intensive Care Unit - of Ram Manohar Lohia - Hospital. All of them took splinters, shrapnel and nails in their lower pelvic area. 'We are trying our best, we never lose hope on any patient till the last moment,' Sunil Saxena, head of the Accidents and Emergency Department, told IANS. At least 13 people were killed and nearly 100 injured when a powerful bomb concealed in a briefcase and left at a crowded gate of the court exploded Wednesday morning. The last person to succumb to his injuries was an official from the Tuticorin Port Trust in Tamil Nadu who was seriously injured in the legs. He died Thursday night at the hospital. While most of the injured were rushed to RML Hospital in the heart of Delhi, some were shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences where two people are still undergoing treatment. Two patients -- Ronald, 62, and Sanjay Goel, 36 -- moved out of RML Hospital against medical advice. Both, doctors said, have taken admission in private hospitals. Detectives have spoken to several of the injured, except the most critically wounded, to know their background -- in the unlikely chances of discovering that one of them could be the elusive bomber. After two days of intense media glare and VIP visits, the crowds had thinned Friday at the RML Hospital. Saxena said that Home Secretary R.K. Singh and officials from the Prime Minister's Office visited the injured Friday morning and handed over compensation cheques. Between the Prime Minister's Office and the Delhi government, Rs.5 lakh will be paid to the families of the dead. The survivors will get varying amounts dependent on the nature of their injuries. Among the anguished visitors of the injured, some were happy their patients had shown... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Rebalancing the nuclear debate through education Posted: 09 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Better physics teaching with a particular emphasis on radioactivity and radiation science could improve public awareness through education of the environmental benefits and relative safety of nuclear power generation, according to leading Brazilian scientist Heldio Villar. He suggests that it might then be possible to have a less emotional debate about the future of the industry that will ultimately reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. To environmental activists, nuclear power and environmental preservation are two antagonistic concepts. Nevertheless, nuclear power can generate huge amounts of electrical and heat energy with minimal impact on the planet, particularly in terms of much lower carbon emissions and pollution than is seen with power generation based on burning fossil fuels. Because of this cultural clash, activists have prognosticated doom for a world if we pursue the nuclear energy option, leading to public distrust of the nuclear industry and its relatives, nuclear research installations and particle accelerators. The introduction of the theoretical bases of radioactivity, radiation physics and nuclear power plants in the environmental education curricula will certainly result in a greater awareness of the public towards the reality surrounding radiation and radioactivity, says Villar of the University of Pernambuco, who not surprising also works for Brazil's Nuclear Energy Commission. This initiative, coupled with a more realistic approach towards nuclear risks on the part of nuclear regulators and licensers, has the potential to make nuclear applications - not only in electric energy production but in other areas - more palatable to a public squeamish of another Three Mile Island or Chernobyl and the specter of nuclear weapons, rendering it more prepared to reap the benefits thereof. Ironically, in the 1950s and 1960s, nuclear power was once hailed as the best option for an energy-starved world. Nuclear reactors... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Children better witnesses than previously thought Posted: 09 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Children are more reliable eyewitnesses than had previously been thought, according to witness psychologist Gunilla Fredin at Lund University in Sweden. She also questions a common method used for police identity parades (line-ups) with children. Young children who witness crimes are good at recounting the events. It is true that they include fewer details than older children and adults, but what they say is more accurate. This has been shown in a study which Gunilla Fredin has carried out on children in the age groups 8-9 and 11-12 as well as adults. Older children and adults have had more experiences and can therefore find it difficult to differentiate between reality and fiction, says Gunilla Fredin. Adults, however, are conscious that they may get things mixed up, while children in the 11-12 age group are often very certain, even when they are wrong. In Sweden, where the study was carried out, there has not been any previous research on children and identity parades, but the general perception has been that young children are not particularly reliable, explains Gunilla Fredin. In another study, Gunilla Fredin set up identity parades in line with the model recommended by Swedish police. Children aged 11-12 and adults were shown a film of a robbery. They were then asked to identify the robber from photographs. The model is known as a sequential identity parade. The witnesses only get to see one photograph at a time, never all together. However, they can see each picture twice, and it is here the problem lies, according to Gunilla Fredin. As the pictures are shown repeatedly, the witnesses' memory images are destroyed; in the end they believe that they recognise the culprit, yet the person might not even have been involved in the incident, she says, adding that 60 per cent of the children and 50 per cent of the adults pointed out innocent individuals. In Gunilla Fredin's view, consideration must be given to the fact that... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Research on US nuclear levels after Fukushima could aid in future nuclear detection Posted: 09 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The amount of radiation released during the Fukushima nuclear disaster was so great that the level of atmospheric radioactive aerosols in Washington state was 10,000 to 100,000 times greater than normal levels in the week following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the disaster. Despite the increase, the levels were still well below the amount considered harmful to humans and they posed no health risks to residents at the time, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. The findings, published by a mechanical engineering professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering and researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), provide important insight into the magnitude of the disaster. They also demonstrate huge advancements in the technology that's used for monitoring nuclear material and detecting covert nuclear operations around the world. I think the conclusion was that this was a really major event here, Cockrell School of Engineering Associate Professor Steven Biegalski said of the Fukushima disaster. Biegalski was on a faculty research assignment at PNNL in Richland, Washington. Its here that, using technology that Biegalski helped improve, he and a team of researchers were the first to detect radioactive materials from Fukushima in the U.S. The material detected, Xenon 133, is of the same chemical family as helium and argon and is an inert gas, meaning it does not react with other chemicals. The gas is not harmful in small doses and is used medically to study the flow of blood through the brain and the flow of air through the lungs. Tracy Tipping, a health physicist and laboratory manager at The University of Texas at Austin's Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory, said the average person in the U.S. receives about 16.4 microsieverts of radiation dose per day from various sources of naturally occurring radiation, such as radioactive materials in the soil, cosmic radiation... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Over 50 percent deaths from non-communicable diseases: Azad Posted: 08 Sep 2011 08:52 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 8 - About 50.5 percent of deaths in India occur due to non-communicable diseases - like diabetes, respiratory diseases, cancers and cardiovascular diseases, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said here Thursday. Chairing a meeting of parliament's consultative committee on health, Azad said these diseases are taking a heavy burden world over, but particularly in India. Globally, an estimated 60.3 percent people die of these diseases. Quoting World Health Organisation -, Azad said more than 20 percent of the population has at least one of these diseases, while 10 percent has more than one. Seeing a global increase of NCD, Azad said the UN General Assembly is planning a two-day special session on these diseases on Sep 19 and 20 in New York. Keeping the situation in mind, the minister said they have already launched various programmes. One of them is the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke. He said the ministry has started it on pilot basis in 100 districts since October last year. The programme will be extended to the entire country during the 12th Five Year Plan from 2012-17, the minister added. He said early detection and timely treatment will lead to increase in cure rate and survival and reduction in exposure to risk factors. Those who attended the meeting included BJP leader and former health minister C.P. Thakur, Shiv Sena leader Bhavana P. Gawli-Patil and Congress' Moti Lal Vora and Girija Vyas. Also present were Ministers of State for Health S. Gandhiselven and Sudip Bandyopadhyay. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Blast victims' kin ask politicians to stay off hospitals Posted: 08 Sep 2011 06:42 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 8 - Relatives of the Delhi High Court blast victims at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital are 'very angry' with VIPs who thronged the venue Wednesday. 'Politicians, keep off!' seems to be their message. Vinod Bakshi's 34-year-old brother, Mridul, is battling for life in the ICU. Vijay Kumar's 26-year-old son, Vinay, is being treated for shrapnel injuries. Both strongly agree that there should be no VIP movement in hospitals in the first 12 hours of such emergencies. 'VIP visits bring unnecessary pressure on the hospital staff,' said Vijay Kumar. Bakshi agreed: 'Instead of giving care to the patients, they are expected to 'attend' to the politicians. The VIPs are more concerned about their publicity and use the opportunity to blame each other. This does not help the common man.' Barring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who personally met the blast victims and their relatives Wednesday night, the likes of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Home Minister P. Chidambaram failed to meet blast victims or their kin. The terror strike has killed 12 people and left 96 injured. While they expresed anger against the VIPs, the relatives of the blast victims had words of praise for the RML staff: 'They have been giving their best.' Vinod said, following instructions from the prime minister, he was receiving hourly briefings on the condition of his brother. Harishankar, whose brother Radhey Shyam, 60, is undergoing treatment, said: 'I would not have been able to afford such expensive medicines.' He too felt VIP movement 'affected' medical attention in the initial few hours. Every bit an example of grit, Radhey Shyam, who lost his left leg below the knee, is still shocked after the blast. 'I somehow managed to pick up my lower leg which had blown away. It was total chaos at Gate 5 with blood splattered all around me. The police took me to the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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