Swine Flu H1N1 - New swine in old bottle - Most Indian media are today abuzz with swine flu activity in and around the government and public circles. Since yesterday, India’s health minister Azad has been seen busy, coordinating a national health disaster management. Still, it is a matter of great shame and surprise to most, how India has bungled this one up.
It was well over a few months ago that we heard of screening at India’s international airports, an quarantines for suspected swine flu patients. All that precaution, seemed to stem the tide, for a while. For just a little while that is. The government officials and the public health experts in India, imagined that this was a disaster avoided. Hardly. Swine flu seems to have come back with a vengeance and it seems to have adapted itself to the Indian climate, and now has gotten comfortable with India’s hospitality and warmth.
One would think we would have learnt the lessons after seeing a dozen deaths across the country in a matter of a few dozen hours. Ha! India’s Health minister was upto the old Indian politician trick today, telling the Indian press how India has handled it better than USA and UK. “…They’ve had so many deaths, we haven’t…”, he opined. Although statistically and numerically accurate, his statement shows his ignorance and inexperience in handling disasters of this kind, and that is a very scary fact. For the health minister and his team, may have wasted precious time during last several weeks, focusing their attention on other much less important matters than a worldwide pandemic that everyone knew would soon come to India. And whenever he was hard pressed for answers, the minister’s response was that ‘health is a state subject..”.
If health is indeed a state subject, then what is the need to have a health ministry in New Delhi? Why don’t we just shut down the central health ministry and save us some Rupees that are needlessly spent in supporting a department that has no work and no job except to make suggestions about public policies?
But that’s not going to be much comfort, either. The state level health departments are full of even stupider morons who can’t seem to produce an intelligent monosyllable. As of this moment, Maharashtra government’s health department’s website fails to make even a mention of swine flu. And even if they did decide to wake up, what would they do? The health ministry of that state, which is currently the epicenter of the swine flu, declares these to beimportant objectives :
6 To improve the maintenance of buildings
7 To implement various national health programmes
8 To give health education for improving knowledge, attitude and behaviour of the community.
Look who’s improving whose behavior and attitude?
Source :Its IndiaTime
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