Don't leave work stns during Puja sans nod: Health officials told in dengue-hit districts

kolkata: State Health department has issued an order directing senior health administrative officials under the West Bengal Health Service (WBHS) and West Bengal Medical Education Service (WBMES) cadres in various dengue affected districts not to leave their working stations without prior permission of concerned authorities during Puja days.

Assistant superintendents (non medical) and deputy superintendents (non-medical) in various hospitals will also have to take prior permission from the authorities while leaving their work stations.

The new order has also instructed the officers to ensure presence of all the supporting staffs required for handling situations that may arise due to unforeseen exigency and manage promptly. The order further says that the concerned officers and supporting staff should be available on phone round the clock. "It should be ensured that all services of the hospitals including emergency services should be maintained and OPDs will definitely function on all the days except October 2 on the day of Saptami, October 3 Mahashtami and also on October 9," the order stated.

In order to ensure that the patients do not face any difficulties while availing treatment both at the outpatient and inpatient departments of the government-run hospitals, the state Health department has prepared roster deploying senior health-administrative officials who will maintain liason with all the district headquarters, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC's) health department from Swasthya Bhawan. Roster has been designed in such a way that it assigns duty to the officers including those on the ranks of DDHS, ADHS on all days from Panchami (September 30) to October 10 (day after Lakshmi Puja).

A senior officer on the rank of DDHS (Admin) and an OSD will remain in charge for the period from September 30 to October 5 and October 6 to October 10 respectively. Health department has already issued necessary directives to all the hospitals and medical colleges in the state so that health services are not affected during puja days. Leaves have already been cancelled for the doctors, non-medical staff and health workers who are on emergency duty. The districts like North 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, Murshidabad, Kolkata, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling have been asked to keep a tab on the situation as dengue infection is comparatively higher in various pockets under these districts.

Meanwhile, around 635 new dengue cases have been detected across the state on Thursday. As many as 704 dengue patients have been admitted in government run hospitals.

A total 4,744 cases have been detected in the last one week. Dengue positivity rate has declined by about 2 per cent from the previous week, Director of Health Services Dr Sidhartha Niyogi said.