PHC in Kovai fails to record fever patients

When DT Next visited the PHC hospital at Sundakkamuthur (Ward 90 of Coimbatore Corporation), a two-year-old child with running temperature (101 degrees Fahrenheit) was not even recorded there.

Surprisingly, the hospital had neither collected the address nor the contact details of the child’s parents. Worse, all patients were treated at the same place, let alone maintaining a separate fever register.

The mother and the child were waiting along with at least half a dozen expectant mothers in the same waiting area in the hospital. More than a handful of elderly people in the locality had also gathered there to collect their regular dose of medication for diabetes and hypertension from a village which had at least two active COVID cases by then. Social distancing norms were also given a go by at the hospital, which caters to several villages in the locality.

“They did not even record our visit to the hospital. A nurse collected temperature using an infrared thermometer. It read 101.1F. Twenty minutes later, a doctor asked me why I had come after 12 noon. When I told her that the baby was running temperature only for the last 30 minutes, she advised me to collect drugs from the pharmacy. She did not care to even use her stethoscope to check for cold,” said the mother holding a couple of syrups outside the pharmacy.

“We came to the PHC because govt advises people to report to a nearest govt facility in case of fever. Also, many private hospitals don’t engage fever patients in the neighbourhood. I don’t know if it is common cold or anything else. The least I expected was them collecting our contact details and following it up with us,” she complained.

When queried, Deputy Director of Health Services, Coimbatore G Ramesh Kumar said that samples were collected mandatorily from all those visiting the Primary Health Centre with fever.

“At least 700 to 800 samples are taken daily in the PHC’s itself and there is no possibility of leaving out anyone. The PHC’s notify them to the public health department and the report is sent to the government daily. All details of persons coming with fever were collected and maintained in PHC’s,” he said.