Rawalpindi : As many as 19 patients have been tested positive for dengue fever at the two allied hospitals in town in last one week taking the total number of confirmed patients so far registered this year at Holy Family Hospital and District Headquarters Hospital to 62.
Data collected by ‘The News’ on Saturday has revealed that in last 24 hours, the HFH confirmed a total of four patients positive for dengue fever while the other two teaching hospitals including Benazir Bhutto Hospital and DHQ Hospital did not receive any confirmed patient of the infection.
In last one week, the HFH tested a total of 16 patients positive for dengue fever while three confirmed patients of dengue fever were registered at the DHQ Hospital.
To date, the HFH received a total of 57 confirmed patients of dengue fever while as many as 17 patients including three confirmed patients of the infection were undergoing treatment at the hospital on Saturday morning. The HFH is waiting for final results in a total of 14 cases while four patients have been tested negative for dengue fever at the HFH in last 24 hours.
The DHQ Hospital has tested a total of five patients positive for dengue fever so far of which one died of the infection.
The DHQ Hospital has registered a total of 24 patients as probable cases of dengue fever while the HFH has so far registered 514 probable cases of the infection.
It is important that Department of Infectious Diseases at the HFH has admitted a total of 516 probable patients of dengue fever this year of which 499 have already been discharged after achieving complete cure.
The trend of dengue fever patients reporting at the HFH at the time does not hint at an outbreak because the patients are being reported from scattered areas of the region including federal capital, AJK, Rawalpindi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwah, said Head of DID at HFH Professor Muhammad Mujeeb Khan while talking to ‘The News’.
He added that the number of patients is on the rise however the situation is well under control at the time.
Our correspondent adds: National health services and regulation minister Aamer Mehmood Kayani paid a surprise visit to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) on Saturday after receiving a telephonic complaint from a patient about delayed care at the dialysis centre.
It's the fifth surprise visit of the minister to the hospital, the largest government one in the federal capital, since he assumed the office last month.
The minister asked PIMS Executive Director Dr Raja Amjad Mehmood about the issue and learned that the influx of patients from the city's periphery and the country's other areas and that, too, without being referred by and large was to blame.
While ordering measures for the easing of the patients' misery, he said the government had planned to develop and upgrade health centres on the outskirts of major cities to ensure care for patients on their doorstep.
The minister said efforts were under way to upgrade the healthcare system in line with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The PIMS chief called for the introduction of a proper patient referral system at the hospital and said patients should be treated in the health centres of own areas and that only the people, whose treatment wasn't possible there, should be referred to it and that, too, after prior intimation.
He said the referral system would ensure the local hospitals into model ones as desired by the minister to the benefit of local residents.
Dr Raja Amjad said many patients referred by hospitals of other cities Pakistan were inconvenienced at the PIMS due to a lack of mutual coordination and thus, adversely affecting the overall patent care.