THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:A ‘fever’ish Kerala with an unprecedented rise in fever outbreaks reported from across the state came up before the Assembly on Wednesday. Even as the Opposition accused the government of complete failure in curbing new types of fever, Health Minister V S Sivakumar told the House that cases reported in the state had come down by around 2 lakh compared to last year.
The Opposition staged a walkout after permission was denied for an adjournment motion over the issue. Alleging major corruption in the Health Department, Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan said the government was supporting medicine lobbies. Elaborating on the measures taken to curb fever outbreak, including H1N1, kala azar, dengue, leptospirosis and malaria, Sivakumar said that the number of cases had come down. “The number of fever cases reported till July 5 is 11,55,340 while during the same period last year it was 13,45,000,” he said. He said 206 medicine items were purchased for Rs 30 crore in March itself to avoid shortage of medicines. “If there’s shortage in any hospital, the government is ready to provide it today itself. Since earlier there was shortage of H1N1 medicines in some private hospitals, about 2.27 lakh capsules were given to Karunya pharmacies. An amount of Rs 19.23 crore has been given to 19,230 wards across the state for fever prevention.”“It has been ensured that each ward has a minimum of Rs 25,000 to deal with the outbreak. He denied allegations of shortage of medicos and nursing staff in hospitals. After coming to power, the UDF government had created 4,799 posts in the Health Department. Out of the 5,345 posts of doctors in the department, now there are only 533 vacancies. However, many more were appointed through NHM. Attempts are being made to change the 1961 staff pattern in a phased manner. As per the decisions of a recent meeting chaired by the chief minister, 230 doctors and 88 staff nurses will also be joining duty soon,” he said. An amount of Rs 2.39 crore was distributed from the plan fund for the prevention of contagious diseases. Many new types of fever had been reported among migrant labourers.
Inspections had been carried out based on which 9,651 establishments were served notice and more than 100 were closed down.
Earlier, raising the issue, C Raveendranath said about 18 lakh people had been affected by fever and 25,000 were approaching the hospital every day. “There’s an increase of 2-3 pc per fever cases while in children it’s about 3.4 pc increase,” he said and alleged that there was acute shortage of medicos and nursing staff in many hospitals. “Casualities are not operational in 61 taluk hospitals,” he said.
Opposition Stages WalkOut
The Opposition staged a walkout after permission was denied for an adjournment motion over the issue. Alleging graft, Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan said that the state government was supporting medicine lobbies