Dengue action needed

THE admission of scores of suspected dengue cases on Thursday to the San Fernando General Hospital, which resulted in a “compromising of medical care” at the institution, is a reminder of the need for ongoing national preventive action on dengue by the Ministry of Health. Reports earlier this year of the drop in possible cases of dengue may have flattered to deceive and may have been responsible for what apparently led the health authorities to minimise the need for their annual assault on a problem which has troubled this country, on and off, for decades. Instead of a sustained campaign of public information on measures to be taken to avoid dengue, in conjunction with the spraying of areas, particularly with the onset of the rainy season, there was instead relative inaction.

However, one thing that the swarm of suspected dengue cases at the San Fernando General Hospital may have achieved was the realisation that accommodation for patients at the hospital, whose construction began in 1946, to replace the old one, is way below what is required. In wards designed to accommodate 25 patients, some 95 had been crowded, triggering the possibility of additional health problems. The caution by the Medical Chief at the San Fernando Hospital, Dr Austin Trinidade, who does not have a reputation of overstating a problem, that medical care at the hospital has been compromised, should not be taken lightly. We ask the questions: What would have been the position had the influx of possible dengue cases to the hospital taken place during one of the recent industrial actions taken by doctors there? Would not medical care at the hospital have been doubly compromised, and the well being of the patients placed under threat? Why did the Ministry of Health, even with the relatively recent statement by a senior doctor that public hospitals in Trinidad and Tobago could have been understaffed, not take preventive action against dengue, including a print and electronic media campaign to remind the public to be on the alert?

Householders should have been reminded of the need to place covers on drums and other receptacles of water to prevent them from becoming breeding places and to keep watercourses clear. In turn, they should have been cautioned not to have old, unused tyres and other containing vessels which could contain stagnant water and provide breeding grounds for the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, transmitters of dengue and other infections. Householders, in turn, have a responsibility to take preventive action to protect themselves and in the process their neighbourhoods. This debilitating disease has not been eradicated from our country and householders, particularly those living in rural districts and close to forested areas must understand the need to take these precautions. The Insect Vector Division of the Ministry, responsible for controlling these insect-transmitted diseases, was apparently lax, and several householders, some of them unknowingly providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes, may be in hospital as a result. We should not need to have to remind officers of the Ministry of Health that they should never relax their vigil. The price for all too many citizens is too painful, and could include not simply the inconvenience of being hospitalised, but death as well.