Sonepur: Despite several measures taken by the district administration, the diarrhea situation in riparian town of Subarnapur has taken an alarming form.
The town residents are in a state of panic as the residents are facing the disease for the first time. Ill-equipped and inexperienced they are unable to contain the disease and it’s spreading far and beyond.
As per the figures available, as many as 105 diarrhea patients got admitted at district headquarters hospital and out of them 24 have been discharged. The latest stats show 81 patients complaining of stomachache and dysentery were undergoing treatment till Wednesday. Thursday another 31 patients were admitted. Sources said that these patients were from all wards in the town.
Shortage of beds, staff nurse and ANM are further deteriorating the condition. While patients were seen receiving treatment lying on the floor, with some doctors and nurses from outside the district joined hands with the existing manpower Thursday. This showed improvement in the treatment available to the patients.
Also, four mobile teams have been pressed into service who are doing rounds of the affected areas. They are not only creating awareness among people but also conducting tests and providing medicines to keep the disease under control. These teams have so far sanitised 1115 people, given precautionary medicine to 853 people and administered first aid to 262 people.
The situation in places like Thanapatipada, Badbazaar, Nuapada, Dhibarpada, malipada, MLApada and Patabhadi is becoming serious as more numbers adding up to the affected. In these areas, several measures are underway to curb the spread of the disease. The drains are being cleaned. Bleaching powder is being sprinkled in drains and other areas. More people from these areas are being sanitised.
Following the direction of the municipality, supply of pipe drinking water to the town has been snapped. The residents are being provided drinking water through tankers. 23 tankers of public health department from Bhubaneswar, Puri, Cutack, Rourkela, Angul, Jharsuguda, Bargarh, Sambalpur, Boudh, Bolangir and from Binika and Tarabha from Subarnapur district were pressed into service. The tube wells were disinfected and all efforts are being carried out in the very presence of public health department’s senior officials.
District health department and public health department had collected sample tube well and pipe water from different places separately. While their chlorine reports were found to be normal, their bacteriological reports were yet to be ascertained.
After the Chlorine report, medical colony, judicial colony and block colony with some other parts of the town were supplied with pipe drinking water in an experimental basis.
The town residents have to blame the contamination of pipe water for the outbreak. As they observe, the intake point of the public health department is at Dasamatighat of Mahanadi. And the same ghat is also the dumping ground for the entire town’s waste water. Garbage and health centers’ medical spillage are also discharged in the Mahanadi, Dasamatighat through the drainage system.
Nonetheless the water from this collection point is pumped into the treatment tank and after being treated, it is being supplied to the town.
Secondly the drinking water pipes along the drains and roads susceptible of contamination are cut for laying domestic connection and most of the time left bare and broken. The contaminated drain water now sips in through the broken pipes into human gut causing outbreaks like this. The whole town uses this pipe water as drinking water, they repeated.
The extension of drinking water supply and new pipe laying work are still on. The work on the intake point at Ghodaghat has been completed, but not made functional as a thirteen KV transformer is yet to be set up.
Local MLA and Housing and Urban Development Minister Niranjan Pujari has been taking stock of the situation with consulting with the senior officials. Collector Madhusudan Mishra and PD, district urban development agency (DUDA) Suryanarayan Dash were hopeful that there would be significant improvement in the situation.
PNN
