Flu lessons for private hospitals

Health department officials will train private hospital staff in Delhi to deal with H1N1 patients from Friday.

Health department officials will train private hospital staff in Delhi to deal with H1N1 patients from Friday.

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The state government also plans to do away with screening of people at airport for flu symptoms. Health and aviation officials will meet on Friday to take a final call on this.

On Thursday, Delhi reported 103 new swine flu cases, taking the total to 2182. Nine people have died in the city so far.

With 283 new cases, the nation-wide figure of affected people touched 8,979. Seven deaths were reported across India on Thursday, taking the overall death toll to 277.

The first batch of 30 people -- including doctors, nurses and paramedics -- to be trained is from Moolchand Medcity, the first among shortlisted private hospitals in Delhi.

The state health ministry had last month directed all 200-bed non-private medical institutions/hospitals to set up facilities to treat H1N1 patients.

"Moolchand is ready. Our experts will visit them tomorrow to train their staff and issue an approval certificate," said Health Minister Kiran Walia.

A team of five doctors from government hospitals will train the Medcity staff on treatment guidelines, prevention, prophylaxis strategies, infection control, etc.

The first batch will be on duty for five weeks. Another team will replace them later.