Visakhapatnam: There seems to be a tussle between two government hospitals over treating swine flu cases. Authorities of King George Hospital (KGH) complain that the Government Hospital for Chest and Communicable Diseases is reluctant to keep swine flu cases with co-morbidities (having other health disorders co-running with the primary disease) and is insisting on KGH treating the patients as it has super-specialists to handle such complex cases.KGH, on the other hand, is apprehensive about admitting the highly infectious swine flu cases as it may lead to an outbreak of H1N1 because the 1,300-bed hospital is always overcrowded with both in- and out-patients and their attendants. Instead, KGH authorities have assured their counterparts at Chest Hospital of sending specialists whenever required to treat co-morbid cases. Technically, the government Chest Hospital, fitted with quarantine wards, is more suited to treat swine flu cases.KGH superintendent G Arjuna said, “I am going to write to the director of medical education on this issue. Treating highly infectious diseases like swine flu require quarantine wards, which have no contact with other wards, a facility which the Chest Hospital has. Even if we have beds for swine flu and such cases of fever, it would be risky to treat them here where thousands of other patients of non-infectious diseases are undergoing treatment .”“We are already treating pregnant women and children with swine flu. But for other regular swine flue cases, Chest Hospital wards are more suited for treating communicable and infectious diseases. They have the required infrastructure and equipment including ventilators. We are sending our super-specialist doctors, anaesthesist and PGs to Chest Hospital whenever there is a swine flu case with co-morbid conditions, like kidney or heart problems or diabetes. But despite all this human resource mobilization, it seems the hospital is reluctant to take complex swine flu cases and want us to treat the co-morbid cases,” Dr. Arjuna told TOI on Thursday.However, superintendent of Government Chest Hospital, Dr Sambasiva Rao said, “There is no misunderstanding between the two hospitals. We are taking the help of KGH super-specialty doctors and managing the swine flu cases. Patients with co-morbidities require super-specialists’ attention, which we may not be able to do on our own and therefore need KGH’s support. Also, since the last two days, there are no patients with swine flu undergoing treatment at our hospital currently.”The KGH superintendent rued that there is no place in KGH to construct a separate quarantine block for swine flu-type infectious diseases. “The risk of outbreak will be high if we keep all cases of respiratory and communicable diseases here with several co-morbid cases from other districts and private hospitals coming to us. We are also conducting lab tests for swine flu confirmation. Let all such complex cases to be treated at the designated Chest Hospital only,” Dr Arjuna said.

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