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View Full Version : Cholera a touchy hospital problem



NewsWhore
06-07-2011, 04:10 PM
Relatives of patients being treated in the cholera unit at the Francisco Moscoso Puello Hospital are complaining that health personnel were neither properly attending to the patients' hygiene nor allowing their relatives to take charge. Relatives are only allowed limited access in order to reduce further infection.

The cholera unit is full of patients from several slum barrios of the capital. They are re-hydrated and released.

The health staff at the hospital, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists announced a work stoppage to demand the firing of the hospital director and the administrator. They claim that conditions in the hospital are not suitable for carrying out their work, and besides this, the food that they are served is of such a very poor quality that they prefer to go outside to purchase food.

The press is reporting that patients with diarrhea are overflowing the cholera units that were set up at several public hospitals in Greater Santo Domingo, San Pedro de Macoris and San Cristobal. Reports are of about 150 patients hospitalized suspected to have caught the disease. Of these, more than 50 are new patients, while the others have spent between three and as much as five days in the hospitals.

According to the hospital authorities, the patients are in good condition and some of them are receiving oral hydration, which in the protocol for the handling of the cholera cases is known as Stage A. The Public Health authorities attribute the increase of patients to the rainy season that is affecting the country and that increases diarrhea infections.

In response to this situation the Ministry of Public Health is maintaining the National Epidemiological System on maximum alert. This involves increased vigilance along the banks of the Ozama River as far as the Isabela River.

Public Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez reported that last week ministry brigades intervened in the slum sectors of Sabana Perdida, Villa Mella and Los Guaricanos in Santo Domingo North; Villa Duarte, La Cienaga, La Barquita and La Puya de Arroyo Hondo in the National District and the Province of Santo Domingo. Their work also sought to prevent an outbreak of leptospirosis, malaria and dengue, which reach their highest levels at this time of the year.

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