PAKISTAN OFFERS CONSUL ACCESS TO JADHAV, INDIA SAYS FOLLOW ICJ
NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: India on Wednesday accused Pakistan of coercing Kulbushan Jadhav, a former naval officer sentenced to death on charges of spying, not to file a petition seeking a review of his case and of not complying with the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) verdict to review his conviction.
New Delhi’s response came hours after officials in Pakistan claimed Jadhav had refused to file an appeal in the Islamabad high court against the death sentence given by a military court despite an offer to do so. Pakistan also offered consular access to Jadhav and to arrange a meeting between him and his father and wife, though there was no immediate response from India.
NEW DELHI: Seeking to reduce the number of deaths among coronavirus disease patients, the Union health ministry has asked specialists from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi to guide doctors in state hospitals treating Covid-19 cases admitted in intensive care units (ICU) through tele-consultation.
The first batch of doctors from 10 state-run hospitals, of which nine were in Mumbai and one in Goa, were trained by the specialists on Wednesday.
“Tele-consultation is a critical component of the clinical intervention protocol for Covid-19. A specialist team of doctors from AIIMS, New Delhi shall provide guidance on effective clinical management of COVID-19 patients in the ICUs of different State hospitals through tele/ video consultation. They will handhold the states in clinical management of COVID-19 patients to reduce the case fatality rate,” the health ministry said in a statement.
The consultation will be conducted for select hospitals twice every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. The hospitals selected for consultation will have 1,000 or more beds for Covid-19 patients, including isolation beds, oxygensupported and ICU beds.
Most experts say it is a good idea to be able to handhold peripheral hospitals in managing critical patients.
“We do not have adequate number of critical care specialists in the country. Most of those managing critical patients, especially in case of Covid-19, are physicians, and it will work better if they get guidance from a specialist. At Medanta also we provide tele-consultation to peripheral hospitals and it works well. In countries like US also; e-ICUs is a growing concept,” said Dr Yatin Mehta, chairman, critical care department, Medanta Hospital.
Dr Nikhil Tandon, professor, department of endocrinology, AIIMS, Delhi, said tele-consultation can help scale up outreach in a pandemic. “At AIIMS, we have started the facility quite effectively, especially for follow-up patients. In a lot of departments such as derma and medicine, it has worked very well,” he said.
The first session of this exercise began on Wednesday afternoon, and was led by Dr Anand Mohan, head of pulmonary medicine department, AIIMS, Delhi.
The hospitals chosen include Nair Hospital; MCGM Seven Hills; Mumbai Metro Dahisar Jumbo Facility, Jio Convention Centre Jumbo Facility; NESCO Jumbo Facility, P South (Phase II); and Government Medical College
and Hospital, Panaji, Goa.
The facility will be extended to another 61 hospitals with a bed capacity ranging from 500-1,000 on twice-a-week basis. A calendar of tele-consultation sessions has been drawn up to cover the states till July 31. A total of 17 such states will be covered: Delhi, Gujarat, Telangana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Up to two doctors handling ICU patients from each hospital along with the director general of health services of the state concerned will participate in the sessions.
Some experts cautioned that tele-consultation has its limitations. “To some extent, in dealing with smaller problems, it can work well, but can’t say the same for handling larger medical problems. There are limitations,” said Dr Arup Basu, senior consultant, chest medicine department, Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi.