Rawalpindi:Every year, after the setting in of summer, public sector healthcare facilities including the three teaching hospitals in town have to receive extraordinary burden of patients with seasonal infections including gastroenteritis.
Many health experts believe that by creating sufficient awareness among the public about preventive measures to avoid summer-related health threats, the incidences of infections among the population can be controlled to a significant level.
It is worth mentioning here that only two of the major summer related health threats, dengue fever and gastroenteritis, cause an extraordinary burden of patients on public sector healthcare facilities in this region of the country particularly the three teaching hospitals in town almost every year and at times, the hospitals have to face shortage of beds in indoor departments.
Data collected by ‘The News’ reveals that the allied hospitals in town including Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital and Rawalpindi Teaching Hospital receive 30000 to 40000 cases of gastrointestinal infections every year in summer of which nearly 10 to 15 per cent of the patients needs admission while majority of these cases are of children.
Soon after the setting in of summer, 30 per cent of all child cases presented to paediatrics departments of the allied hospitals are with gastro or related infections. Complications of gastroenteritis claim a number of lives every year in the country and according to health experts, the major reasons behind death among gastroenteritis patients include late presentation to the hospitals, acute kidney failures and ignorance of the patients and their families.
Gastroenteritis (also known as gastro) is an infection of the stomach and intestine. It is a group of diseases caused by various viruses, bacteria, their toxins and parasites. The most common symptoms are diarrhoea and vomiting.
Deaths from the condition are common in the developing world like Pakistan especially in children under five years of age and according to health experts, it is mainly because of unawareness among parents.
Poor hygienic conditions at food places in homes and at vendors contaminate locally prepared drinks and foodstuff while flies in summer help spreading infections further because of sale of uncovered food, cut fruits and uncovered drinks and these must be avoided.
Experts say that there is a need to create awareness among the public on danger signs and factors that include intractable vomiting, altered consciousness, decreased or absent urine formation, diarrhoea with bleeding, post diarrhoea obstruction and intestinal perforation particularly among patients over 65 years of age or below five years. If any of these factors are present, the patient must be taken immediately to the nearest hospital for lifesaving management.
It is time to educate the public, particularly parents that Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) is the standard therapy for a patient suffering from diarrhoea. Many studies have revealed that the initial six hours of the onset of acute gastro is the golden time to save the life and gastrointestinal tract of the patient. If a patient is treated within six hours with IV fluids and medicine, the chances of complications are reduced to less than five per cent.
