Monday, August 20, 2012

prevent disasters through notification

Madhushi Nanayakkara
18/08/2012
post no 1



Clinicals on Saturdays is always a real pain for me. There’s NO way to escape on that , even in com med appointment.I wanted to cut the lec on that saturday.But I made my mind to attend it, as the schedule  topic was infection notification system about which I knew hardly. Anyway I expected  it to be a very short lecture……

In the com med appointment ,we always experience a  new aspect of medicine. The places where we have  lectures also different.So for the first time in my life, I was in the infection controlling unit. A pretty  nursing officer came to lecture us  on “Disease surveillance system”(a big name for notification system :) )

During the first 15 minutes,I understood the importance of notification system. This, time- consuming process is really important for the prevention of infectious diseases like dengue, Tb etc. The basis of this system is MOH office to know about the patients  with infectious diseases in their area and take necessary actions to prevent them from being spread. All the people in this society are legally bound to inform MOH  office about infectious diseases. Most commonly they get informations from hospitals by H544 form and special campaigns. Ultimately, MOH office has to inform about confirmed infectious diseases to the reigional epidemiology unit and the Epidemiology unit. (@ the moment e-mail,telephones are use to inform immediately , but it’s mandatory  to inform them via the formal method as well.If it’s about cholera, plague, yellow fever, epidemiology unit has to inform WHO.
At the end of the session,  what really went in to my mind was  the importance of filling the H544 form.
It shouid be filled in clear handwriting, before  discharging the patient.  And the most important thing is to get the address from the patient  itself & not from the guardian ,unless the patient is very small or unable to speak, obviously . Because this entire system depends on the patient’s address.

IT wasn’t a boring lecture, also not a short one as I predicted.  But an interesting and a useful one.

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