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Let me explain why I am still furious at the people who are tom-tomming the lockdown's success earlier..anybody who thought this *wouldn't* happen at Sion Hospital doesn't know what they are talking about https://twitter.com/suchetadalal/status/1259171265925066758
I talked to the head of internal medicine of Sion Hospital in November last year - long before all this began https://science.thewire.in/health/healthcare-acquired-infections-multi-drug-resistance-nabh-accreditation/
They have the "keep patients on the floor" situation every single year - every outbreak season for dengue
And we were suddenly going to solve this with COVID? And keeping patients on the floor was never a great idea. Patients were dying even then due to high rates of HAIs
Everyone knew this was coming. Zero surprise value here. This is why the government tom-tomming that the lockdown worked, acting as if this was not going to happen, is so infuriating for health reporters.
We have let our public health infrastructure go to the dogs. The stories that doctors tell in 'peacetime' are equally frighetening. trust me. 2-3 patients per bed. nurses who will not do catheterisation (maybe lack of PPE?); So junior doctors have to do it
These hospitals don't even want to think about things like accreditation (to improve their infection control) because they will never get there
They will never have that infrastructure, crowd control, hygiene, human resources to basic infection control
H1N1 spreads in the hospital too, not just covid. And it kills too. Klebsiella spreads in hospitals too. And it also kills.
And suddenly we act like Sion Hospital would have streamlined what are *permanent problems* to tackle COVID. Ya right!
They may still have done it. If our health ministries and state administrations weren't sleeping on the job.
If they saw in January what COVID would look like in India, and moved *then*!!! Many doctors were already saying this. Follow @pseudo_sapiens on Twitter if you want to know more.
Nothing about this is surprising. So let's not act like it is.
And this is why I ask: how are low test positivity rates for India compared to Germany and France *ever* good news? Do we have health infrastructure like Germany? Have you lost your mind to compare us with Germany?
They can handle even a 40% positivity rate and not see a situation like this. We have dead bodies sitting around in patient wards with a 4.5% positivity rates. Kindly pull your heads out of your asses, NITI Aayog and others.
When I went to 'peacetime' Sion Hospital: "A spot check of Mumbai’s Lokmanya Tilak Hospital...revealed a lack of soap in several toilets. Officials said it was hard to replace soap in patients’ toilets, given the large crowds." https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/the-growing-peril-of-drug-resistant-superbugs/story-RUGLv3Jv31Ha17reByBARL.html
Went into wards and toilets too. Dirty, ill-kept, smelly, some lacking wash basins. No, it's not the doctors' faults. It's the fault of our politicians who don't care. Here is an article from 2018: cats seen more frequently than staff in hospital's wards https://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-cats-not-staff-in-sion-hospital-ward-2592989
This is an NGO's report of hygiene at Chennai's public hospitals. Enjoy the photos. I went to some of these hospitals in 2019 - was similar. And TN is supposed to be vastly superior to several other states. So, imagine UP/Bihar etc. https://arappor.org/public/Document/activites/public-health/citizens-audit-of-public-health-services.pdf
Before you start saying that lack of soap in toilets is no big deal, hand-washing is the biggest deal in infection control.
And I know we are not *supposed* to expect soap in toilets in government hospitals. But guess what: we are!
