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Community health camps cancelled in Pune city due to diseases outbreak

ByVicky Pathare
Sep 30, 2024 06:18 AM IST

Due to the disease outbreak, most hospitals are running at full capacity leading to a shortage of beds and staff and eventually affecting the planned community health camps, said officials

The vector-borne diseases outbreak of chikungunya and dengue has affected the planned community health camps that private, charitable hospitals and medical colleges in the city were supposed to conduct in the last week of September.

These medical colleges and hospitals were asked to conduct community health camps in the slums and rural areas for two months. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC)
These medical colleges and hospitals were asked to conduct community health camps in the slums and rural areas for two months. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC)

Due to the disease outbreak, most hospitals are running at full capacity leading to a shortage of beds and staff and eventually affecting the planned community health camps, said officials.

Dr Vaibhav Gaikwad, district coordinator of MPJAY and PMJAY health scheme, informed there are over 90 hospitals on the panel of the health scheme and over 100 community health camps have been conducted to date.

“The health camps in the last week of September in the Pune city area have been cancelled due to the disease outbreaks. However, the health camps in the rural parts of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad are being conducted as per the directions. Once the situation improves the number of health camps is likely to be increased,” he said.

Earlier in the last week of August the government issued orders to charitable hospitals, hospitals empanelled under Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana (MPJAY) and Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) and medical colleges under Maharashtra University of Health Sciences to conduct free community health camps.

These medical colleges and hospitals were asked to conduct community health camps in the slums and rural areas for two months. As per the orders healthcare facilities with more than 100 beds were directed to conduct 40 camps, those with 50 to 100 beds to hold 30 camps, and those with less than 50 beds will organise 20 camps.

Dr HK Sale, executive director of Noble Hospital and chairman of the Association of Hospitals, Pune, said, during the meeting held with the charity commissioner the ground reality has been explained to the commissioner.

“We have a shortage of staff and beds in the facility with a large number of patients. Due to this, the hospitals won’t be able to conduct community health camps in such large numbers. The charity commissioner has also agreed that a feasible number of community health camps should be conducted by the hospital,” he said.

Dr Vinod Sawantwadkar, chief executive officer of Jehangir Hospital, said that every month the hospital conducts around 20 community health camps and even this month the hospital was able to conduct the same number of health camps.

“The hospital is running at full capacity with a large number of chikungunya, dengue and H1N1 patients. This makes it difficult to conduct a large-scale health camps given the staff constraints. Most of the indoor patients admitted are serious patients and need round-the-clock monitoring. However, when the situation improves increasing the number of community health camps can be considered,” he said.

Dr Sanjay Patil, chairman hospital board of India, Pune Chapter, said, the general practitioners in the city are seeing a large number of chikungunya and dengue cases.

“The serious patients are referred to private hospitals. However, the private hospitals are running full and there is a shortage of beds. In such a situation conducting a large number of health camps is difficult,” he said.

“The hospital staff at many facilities are also infected and down with the illness. This has resulted in a shortage of both hospital beds and even staff,” added Dr Patil.

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