Our daughter confirmed positive for swine flu and was treated at New Delhi’s Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital in Malviya Nagar. She has been discharged but our concerns are about the absence of a firm directive from hospital authorities on the flu.
Our daughter, who is in Class 7, suffered due to the negligence of a set of parents and because she had been in contact with their child who tested positive. The moment our daughter had fever (104 degrees), we acted on the ‘swine flu’ path. We had had two parties after the contact where around 70 people came in contact with her but the doctors were not very sure if all of them needed to be warned about our daughter testing positive. Finally, they were informed casually but not specifically.
The doctors on duty at the Isolation Ward of the hospital were clueless on how to handle patients and there was no consistency in their dealings. Some patients were discharged on the sixth day of hospitalisation while some on the fourth day. Our daughter was discharged on the fifth day. All of them were in similar health conditions at the point of leaving hospital.
There was no reason or explanation for patients being discharged on different days.
Our daughter was given treatment for swine flu based only on a verbal communication from the doctor on duty that the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) had confirmed she tested positive.
We have still not seen the report. If our child had swine flu, why was the report hidden from us?
We were given individual tablets by the doctors with no indication of what tablet we were taking. When we asked them to give us the full strip, so we could give it to our daughter, or asked what tablets they were, our queries were not encouraged. We had to ask for the attendant’s dosage because that was invariably forgotten.
If swine flu is something that is gaining alarming proportions, with India reporting its first death Monday, why this negligence?
The hospital was no doubt far above the normal standards of a regular government hospital. The ward was air-conditioned and patients were not packed like sardines. But the recordings were done very casually — first on a rough piece of paper and then transferred to the file.
This is our effort to bring on record what happens in the swine flu ward and to create awareness about the disease.
But believe us, it is not such a scare. If only, however, the treatment and directives were clearer.
