Health minister has foot-in-mouth disease while the MOH DG1 HAS FOOT IN ASS DISEASE PUSWARI DOC IS NOT QUALIFIED TO PULL IT OUT

Health minister has foot-in-mouth disease while the MOH DG1 HAS

FOOT IN ASS DISEASE PUSWARI DOC IS NOT QUALIFIED TO PULL IT OUT

Liow said patients with influenza-like symptoms and heart problems, those with persistent high fever for more than two days and those tested positive for influenza A or B through a rapid test would be given antiviral treatment immediately.

This happened exactly this morning around 3:30 morning.

2 days ago my nephew was tested Influenza A positive, and given tamiflu treatment from a private hospital. So early this morning i receive a call from my sister that my nephew pillow is full of blood. A lot of blood coming out fron his nostril. We got panic. No idea what to do and we make a few call to some government agency. Was told to immediately bring him to general hospital.

Upon reaching GH, no idea where to go. No booth or specific sign. No people as it is in the middle of the night. Check with security, who happen to have an arguement with another security. Was told to go to emergency room. So we rush to the room, standing there with my nephew who is wearing a shirt with blood and a mask. Nobody comes to even ask us anything. But hey, we should approach them right? so we go in and ask 1 of the M.O i suppose. Tell her everything and explained everything. She said wait.. walk to the front, walk to the back, asking this guy then ask us wait again. So we just stand there. Then she came back.. ask another guy i suppose is M.O as well. Then comes to us and say, can you walk to the front counter and register first.

WTF? You called that immediate attention? We are holding a test result of Ifluenza A positive of a 7 years old kid that have blood stain on his shirt. You ask me to go register and wait for my turn? There is a bout 10 people there waiting. You ask my nephew to actually sit inside there with those poor guys? He is positive of H1N1 for godsake. Non of the other patient is wearing any mask apart form the medical staffs. Ain't they bother to make sure it dosn't transmit to other peoples in that room?

Out of anger, i walk out from GH and drive straight to a private hospital. Actually 2, as the first 1 we go the doctor is sleeping so ask us to come back few hours later in the morning. Well, i guess it is not that important. We do get immediate attention for the second private hospital we went to. Well taken care of and the doctor came immediately upon call. He did all kinda of test and give tons of good advices. This is what the country need. A caring hospital/medical staffs and doctors, the like of Penang Adventist Hospital.

So, Mr. health minister please. Walk the Talk and stop keep Talk and Talk. I still remember you once said, "malaysia have a very low casualty rate which is ONLY 1 "death". That is like 0.05%. So we have nothing to worry about. It is under control" I never expect a word like this from a Health Minister

UPDATED

PUTRAJAYA, Aug 12 — Two babies and a 26-week pregnant woman were among six new deaths linked to Influenza A (H1N1), bringing the total fatalities due to the disease to 44.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said these latest deaths involved people infected between August 6 and 9 and that their deaths were reported yesterday as linked to H1N1.

“Four of the cases had risk factors like diabetes, hypertension, heart problems or obesity. Their actual dates of death were August 7 (four), August 9 (one) and August 10 (one),” he told a press conference at his ministry here today.

Liow said one of the children, a 10-month-old girl who did not have any congenital problems, had fever and cough symptoms on August 1 and was brought for treatment on August 6 but died the next day.

She was admitted because she was having breathing problems but was not given antiviral treatment although a throat swab was taken on August 6, he said.

Liow said the other child was a 12-month-old boy with a congenital heart defect who had only recently undergone heart surgery at private hospital before he was referred to a government hospital on Aug 7 after experiencing fever and fits.

He said, however, anti-viral treatment was not given although a throat swab was taken on Aug 8 and that the boy died on August 9 of surgical complications and pneumonia. It was confirmed he was infected by the H1N1 virus on August 10.

“Another case involved an obese 18-year-old housewife who was 26 weeks pregnant. She suffered flu symptoms on August 3 and sought treatment at the local health clinic the same day.

“However, her condition became worse and she was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit when she had difficulty breathing on August 7. Antiviral treatment was started the same day with a throat swab taken on Aug 9 before she was confirmed to have contracted H1N1 on August 10 and died the same day of severe pneumonia ,” he said.

Liow said two of the deaths involved elderly men, aged 60 and 62, under the high risk category and that they died of severe pneumonia while the other person, a 24-year-old man without any history of illnesses died on August 7, of severe pneumonia and septicemia, and was confirmed to be a H1N1 case on Aug 10.

Liow added that 76 patients had been placed in wards and 21 at intensive care units (ICUs) of whom 12 were deemed to be at high risk due to chronic illnesses (10), obesity (one) and post-delivery (one).

A total of 86 patients were also discharged from hospitals yesterday, he said, adding that from today the ministry would no longer be updating on the total number of H1N1 cases in line with guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

“WHO’s latest guidelines only call for updates on patients hospitalised, the number at ICUs and number of fatalities,” he said. – Bernama

Just as Malaysian government underestimated the H1N1 when it was 1st reported, by not acting swiftly & firmly; Mr. is also 'under estimating' it. I hope & pray he too does not ends up with "foot in the mouth" disease.

India cannot afford to be lax, & some amount of panic will ensure people, institutions & society to be attentive and precautious.

Let us be clear on the challenge we face. We are the only country/region of the world where Polio still exists despite a vaccine being available for more than 25years or more now! H1N1 does not offer any such luxury. Fighting H1N1 will require disipline, understanding, effort, patience & loads of luck.

The influenza A (H1N1) mortality rate in Malaysia is close to 2 per cent instead of the 0.1 to 0.4 per cent estimated by the Health Ministry. It reflects an unusual phenomenon.

Without finding out the crux of the problem, assuming that 5 million of people are infected, probably 100,000 of them will die, instead of 5,000 to 28,000 estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO).

If we compare to other countries, we can see the inadequacy of prevention and control in Malaysia.

Vietnam reported 1,211 confirmed cases with one death and the mortality rate of 0.08 per cent. Hong Kong reported 5,991 confirmed cases with four deaths and the mortality rate of 0.067 per cent. Australia reported 27,663 confirmed cases with 95 deaths and the mortality rate of 0.34 per cent.

Even Singapore, which reported deaths earlier than Malaysia, has recorded only nine deaths.

The Health Ministry believed that the domestic confirmed cases are far less than the announced figure, and said it should be multiply by 20 to get the correct data.

But if we compare it to other countries calculated based on the announced confirmed cases, their rates are still lower than ours.

Why has our death toll shot up to 44 people within three weeks after the first death case reported on July22 ?

And why are we having over 200 new cases each day, causing the epidemic to fall out of control?

Such a high mortality rate might be caused by a variation of the virus, weak immune system of Malaysians, poor public health system and ability to deal with an emergency.

The former two causes have very low probability. If there is a variation or a new virus, the Health Ministry would have recognised it through the autopsy reports. And no matter how weak is the Malaysians immune system, it would not have killed six to eight people every day.

The key should be the public health system and the mobility of medical personnel.

Hong Kong, Japan and Australia no longer take the quarantine measures, but they are still having a low mortality rate because of their sound public health systems in which their medical personnel treat the high-risk patients first.

Many people complaint that government hospitals have been reacting too slow to the influenza, including spending a lot of time waiting for tests and long testing time. Many patients might have missed the golden time for treatment during the waiting period and died.

In addition, during the early stage, the government treated the epidemic with neglect, low efficiency and it did not see it as a serious infectious disease.

If the government has held a large-scale awareness and hygiene campaign, including stopping assemblies, the epidemic would not have lost control.

The people lost the sense of crisis because the government did not propagate it through the media at that time as they took into account the impact of it on the national economy, especially on tourism.

Such a serious epidemic has tested Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s governing philosophy of “people first, performance now”.

The government must take urgent measures and emergency means, including having early school holiday and a general mobilisation of medical resources, to prevent the spread of the influenza. Any hesitation will further push up the death toll. - mysinchew.com

Rajesh Kalra Tuesday August 11, 2009

While the Indian media whip up an unnecessary panic around swine flu, the one person who should ideally be working towards containing the panic has been afflicted with an even more dangerous ailment. I am referring to our honourable health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is suffering from an almost incurable disease called "foot-in-mouth".

Although a number of our ministers, historically, have suffered from this disease, this is the first time the health minister himself has been caught in its vicious web. Poor chap! First he put his foot in the mouth by saying the first Indian casualty, a young girl in Pune, was responsible for spreading the virus among at least 80 people as she moved from one hospital to the other. He quickly retracted after there was an uproar over his insensitivity, but he has followed that with an encore, this time with both his feet, by saying that 33% of Indians will contract the flu by 2011. I find it hard to believe that the minister actually said that!

No wonder, there are murmurs that his statement, apart from adding to the prevailing panic, may have actually helped the cause of some pharmaceutical companies.

But why blame the minister alone for adding to the panic? Our exalted media, especially the electronic media, are doing no better. There have been less than 1,000 confirmed cases in a country of over a billion, and by everybody’s admission, the strain that is of a mild variety, is certainly no cause for the kind of panic that is being witnessed. Sure, there have been avoidable deaths, which are tragic as all deaths are, but the truth is there are more who die in this country due to other diseases.

One can even argue that the panic is not necessarily due to the number of infections, or the growing death count, but our past record in containing the spread of ailments, especially given the shambolic state of our healthcare system. Could be true, which is why we need to act, and act fast. But we certainly don’t need to panic as if we are nearing the end of this world.

Apart from making for a scared populace, it also makes little economic sense. If we continue to whip up panic, some of the western nations are bound to issue advisories that India is an unsafe place to travel to. Wouldn’t that be ironic? We imported that disease from the west in the first place. I am sure, the exporters of the disease are chuckling somewhere at our stupidity.