DATELINE BAHAWALPUR: Concern over dengue fever
By Majeed Gill
WITH the reported case of dengue fever in the Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) here before Eidul Fitr, a wave of alarm has swept the city and its suburbs. The local public circles expressed anguish and surprise over the non-availability of diagnostic kits and laboratory facilities for tests of blood samples of suspected patients of dengue fever in BVH.
BVH is one of the premier hospitals of the province with a strength of over 1,200 beds. It has a glorious past completing 100 years of its existence. The hospital was granted the status of a teaching hospital after the establishment of Quaid-i-Azam Medical College (QAMC) here around 1970. It caters to the needs of patients up to Sukkur in Sindh, from where scores of people daily visit this hospital to seek specialist advice on various diseases infecting them. But BVH is without any proper laboratory for the examination of the blood sample of any suspected case of dengue fever and also lacked the diagnostic kits to screen such patients.
In the absence of such facilities, either the doctors will have to send the patients’ blood samples to the Aga Khan Laboratory, Karachi, and wait for several days for their results or advise the suspected patients to immediately move to Jinnah Post-graduate Medical Institute, Karachi, for prompt treatment. This will add to the worries of the patient and his relatives, who will have to incur an expenditure of thousands of rupees there.
Alive to the situation arising from the outbreak of dengue fever in various parts of the country, it is time the government equipped the laboratory with all necessary facilities and provided diagnostic kits to BVH without wasting further time. The Punjab health department should expedite matters in this respect so that investigations could be expedited to switch over to the required treatment. Emergency measures would help the doctors here to save the people from the deadly virus.
In the circumstances, TMAs should realise their responsibility towards the improvement of health and sanitary conditions for the people. All six TMAs of the district should immediately launch fumigation campaigns to eliminate mosquitoes. The sanitation staff should target the breeding places in slums, particularly katchi abadis. Besides, ponds, stagnant water spots and overflowing sewage in new localities and the walled city should be fumigated under a timetable to prevent the breeding of such dangerous mosquitoes. TMAs should allocate the funds for this purpose and tehsil nazims should rise to the occasion to ensure the safety of citizens. The Punjab local bodies department should take notice of the dengue fever virus and the threat it was posing to the health of the people and issue the necessary instructions to the local institutions in the province.
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ACCORDING to reports, illegal hunting by poachers in Cholistan here was going on unchecked. The public circles have complained that the department of wildlife and special anti-hunting squads were not performing their duties efficiently and instead kept their eyes closed with the result that the hunters were at liberty and ‘murdering’ the precious species in the vast desert here. According to information, as the winter season is fast approaching, some witnesses have alleged that with the patronage of officials unauthorised hunters have camped at various points in Cholistan for the illegal hunting of rare species of hawk.
The precious hawks, which were in great demand in the Gulf and UAE, could fetch millions of rupees to the hunters. It has also been alleged that the game department’s officials minted money to issue licences to the interested parties for the hunting of hawks in the desert.
It is regretted that the government has extended maximum facilities, privileges and other incentives to officials for the protection and promotion of wildlife in the desert but they (government officials) themselves have become killers of wildlife. The government should probe public complaints against the officials of wildlife and game departments and take strict action against them if they were found guilty. In addition, solid measures should be taken to stop illegal hunting in the desert, which was still rich in wildlife despite the ruthless killing by certain elements in the past.
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SEVEN colleges in the district are without proper buildings. According to district education officer (colleges) Ghulam Akbar Sheikh, out of seven, the buildings of five colleges at Uch Sharif, Ahmadpur East, Khairpur Tamewali, Yazman and Hasilpur are being constructed at a cost of Rs250 million and will be completed within two years.
Each college building will have 14 classrooms, seven laboratories with an administrative block and the principal’s residence. As regards the buildings of two remaining colleges of Satellite Town and Khairpur Degree College, planning is still in the initial stage and PC-1 is being prepared by the department.
