PMCH employee Lalan Kumar’s wife Basanti Devi, who had been admitted to the hospital two days back. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Three cases of dengue at PMCH has exposed how authorities might have forgotten the importance of conducting fumigation drives in areas where mosquitoes breed.

Known for its super-speciality treatment, the premier health hub could not prevent itself from the vector-borne disease as unconfirmed reports have said one of its doctors is also down with dengue.

So far, 155 dengue cases have been reported from different parts of Patna district with the count in the urban area touching 117 till Saturday.

At PMCH, three of its employees — two Grade IV employees and one nurse — have been found suffering from dengue.

Some relatives of the PMCH employees, who are living in the quarters on the hospital campus, have also been found positive with dengue.

Confirming the development, PMCH deputy superintendent Sudhanshu Singh said: “The civil surgeon’s office and Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) held a meeting around a fortnight ago in which it was discussed that places would be identified across the city where fumigation drives would be conducted. Deepak Kumar, who was health department principal secretary then, had presided over the meeting. We (PMCH officials) had had pointed out the need of the fogging exercise on the PMCH premises also. But nothing moved after that.”

Shankar Prakash, head, microbiology department, PMCH, said symptoms of dengue had also been found in one of the doctors of the hospital. However, he did not reveal the name.

Sources said some of the staff of microbiology department, which conducts dengue tests, were found suffering from the disease last year.

Responding to a query regarding the fogging issue, PMC official Shailesh Kumar said: “We are conducting fumigation drives in different localities. If the PMCH administration wants to get fogging done in any particular area of their campus, they should inform us. We have no problem in conducting fogging there but they have to inform us also.”

A senior PMCH doctor on condition of anonymity said: “Both the PMC and civil surgeon’s office are responsible for conducting fogging exercise on the hospital campus but both of them are passing the buck. Conducting fogging on the PMCH campus is required because open drains are abound here, making breeding easy for the mosquito species. Stagnant water could also be found at many places on the campus. There is a need of conducting fogging at the PMCH also because many dengue patients come here for treatment. The disease (dengue) can further spread if the Aedes Aegypti mosquito (dengue vector) bites a normal person after biting a dengue patient.”

The PMCH employees living at the hospital quarters are quite a terrified lot because fogging had hardly been conducted on the campus.

Lalan Kumar, an employee of the operating theatre, whose wife Basanti Devi has been detected with dengue, said: “All of us (hospital employees) are living with fear. The whole campus is quite dirty and so the chances of spreading dengue are more here. Our vulnerability is even more than residents in upscale localities.”