Dr_Bruno
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Why premier health institute’s hostels are fertile grounds f
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10.03.06 (1 year ago)
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With AIIMS
in the grip of dengue, Shilpa Venkatraman checked out the hostels at the institute. Here’s what she found:
Kitchens a mess
Hygiene has been given the go-by in the kitchens of the three hostel messes, where food for the 700-odd students and resident doctors of AIIMS
is prepared.
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The stench from a nearby toilet greets you while entering the mess of hostel number seven. Inside, a shirtless cook was slicing potatoes with soiled hands, waste scattered all around him.
In the hostel five mess, a man was washing dishes on the floor less than two feet away from where food was being cooked. Hygiene levels in the third kitchen are no different.
A drain runs through it
An open sewage drain flows less than 10 metres away from hostels three and four. Garbage is strewn along both sides. And there are pools of water which provide ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes that spread dengue and malaria.
Coolers unchecked
Health authorities have warned that coolers are primarily responsible for helping the aedes mosquito, which spreads dengue, breed in urban areas. But students in hostels 4 and 5 — which host most of the 21 students and doctors infected by dengue —use coolers. Raj Kiran, the student who died of the disease on Saturday, too stayed in hostel 5. Students admit that it is their responsibility to keep the coolers dry. But they add that before the outbreak, the coolers were never checked by workers from the in-house sanitation committee or civic agencies.
Building trouble Mosquitoes are also breeding in areas near the under-construction dental wing, which is right behind hostels 4, 5 and 8. There are pools of stagnant water in pits dug for the building. Water has also collected in empty plastic drums that have been dumped near the site.
Officialspeak
“Work on covering the drain will begin by the end of this month and will be completed by March 2007,” said Dr D K Sharma, medical superintendent of the institute.
Regarding the hostel mess, Sharma said, “I have eaten at the hostel mess for many years and stopped only recently. I don’t think the food is unhygienic.”
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