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Take precautions to stem infections
ALL FUTURE para-medical staff should remember to take preventive measures while dealing with patients so as to stem spread of any infection, either to themselves or other patients.
ALL FUTURE para-medical staff should remember to take preventive measures while dealing with patients so as to stem spread of any infection, either to themselves or other patients.
This advice was given to para-medical students by Vice-Chancellor, Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj University, Prof Sarvagya Singh Katiyar, during the inaugural address of a seminar on ‘Biological hazards and universal precautions in hospitals and laboratories’, here on Thursday. The meet was organised by the Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, CSJMU, Kanpur in collaboration with the UP Hospital and Health Administration Reforms Society, Lucknow, on the varsity’s campus.
Katiyar, a Padmashree recipient, while sharing his academic experiences with the audience said the students should work diligently by following the 15 prescribed universal norms of precautions. He said, “Thirty-years-ago when I was doing my research in bio-chemistry and general engineering in United States, I nursed an ambition that I would introduce para-medical courses on the university campus if I ever got a chance.”
He said at the time when he was a student, advanced machines were not available and most of the testing work was done manually. Quoting an incident of how there was panic due to lack of precautions at hospitals, Katiyar said, “I was in the US in 1981 when the HIV was detected. And there was such a panic that nobody was interested in blood transfusion in select surgeries. A similar panic is now seen here in our country.” He lamented that the person who had discovered the HIV had not yet been given the Nobel Prize.
He further said the government did not provide statistical data of HIV-inflicted persons in the country and asked students to consider every patient as a carrier of some infection. It was only then that he could do justice to his profession and make certain that qualitative treatment was imparted.
Medical Superintendent, SGPGI, Dr Hem Chandra pointed areas of potentially high-risk in government hospitals. He said, “The high-risk areas in hospitals like blood transfusion unit, intensive care unit, operation theatre, dialysis unit, medical laboratory, microbiology, dissection, wards for infectious diseases and sterilisation and disinfecting units, were places where doctors and para-medical staff should take precautions so as to avoid risk of spreading any infections.”
Experts felt it should be made mandatory in all hospitals that doctors and other staff must change surgical gloves and masks and use sterilised surgical instruments with every operation they carried out.
