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Lashing out at state governments for 'forgetting their duty' and not doing enough to combat swine flu, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday said the Centre was stretching itself to the maximum to contain the disease.
"We (Centre) can go to a point, don't expect us to go beyond a point," he said, addressing state health ministers at a review meeting of the National Rural Health Mission.
"This is the maximum limit we could stretch ourselves. Beyond this, the state governments should shoulder their responsibility which they haven't done," he said.
Contending that it was the Centre which was doing everything, including contact tracing, procuring medicines, looking for vaccines and training doctors, he said, the states have forgotten their duty.
While the Central officers are working so hard, "I would expect state level officer to at least sit till 10 pm and give some report and do something. It is because of our intervention at the national level that we have succeeded so far."
"There is a limit for ministry of health to do this contact tracing and treating. I would request all the ministries and secretaries to be active and identify the hospitals," Azad said.
Soon after Azad finished his speech, Gujarat Health Minister J N Vyas commented that as a federal minister he should not have made the remarks against state governments.
To this, Azad replied that he was not naming any state and some states had indeed done good work.
Azad said he had written to all state governments earlier asking them to identify hospitals and train doctors for swine flu but there had been no response following which he asked the Cabinet Secretary to get some additional secretaries and officials from other ministries to go to the state capitals.
"When they went to the states, I again called up all the chief ministers," he said.
"It was the duty of the state governments to train the doctors at the district level," he said, adding the Centre could have just done its duty by sending a letter.
Azad also asked the state governments to use the regional media to reach out to people.
"Press briefings should be held regularly to keep the people informed".
He alleged that he had been trying to contact some state health ministers but they had not returned his calls.
"Each state should have an institutionalised mechanism to deal with it (swine flu) and shoulder their responsibility effectively," he said.
Accusing some state governments of not taking the situation seriously, he said certain states have not made available the required number of beds or doctors.
"Though WHO predicts that the overall severity of this influenza pandemic would be moderate. India, like any other country, needs to be prepared for large community outbreaks with it inherent consequences," he said.
Second swine flu death in TN
Tamil Nadu on Friday reported its second swine flu fatality with a 47-year-old man falling victim to the virus at a government hospital in Chennai.
The man was admitted with symptoms of swine flu on August 13 and advised to take Tamiflu tablets but he left without informing after giving his throat samples for test, General Hospital Dean Mohana Sundaram told PTI.
He had tested positive when the swab test results came, after which the hospital authorities immediately alerted the public health department about the patient's details, Sundaram said.
Concerned officials swung into action and found that the patient, whose name was not revealed, had got himself admitted to a private hospital in Adayar. The patient did not inform the doctors that he was administered Tamilflu, he said.
Officials alerted the private hospital authorities that he had tested positive for the H1N1 virus. His condition had deteriorated by then and he was immediately shifted to General Hospital, where he succumbed to the flu, Sundaram said.
He said the patient had also contracted pneumonia. Tamil Nadu had reported its first swine flu fatality on August 10, when a four-and-a-half year old boy died of the disease.
Image: People ride past a billboard carrying messages on prevention of the Influenza A (H1N1) virus in Hyderabad
Text: Agencies | Photographs: Krishnendu Halder/Reuters