The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

HEALTH

Panel discussion on health
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 12 — The two-day panel discussion on “General awareness to adolescents on common health problems” concluded at the Government Polytechnic for Women, Sector 10, here today.

Dr Rajiv Vadhera, SMO of the Sector 45 poly-clinic, and Dr Anjali Aggarwal from the Sector 16 General Hospital constituted the panel for today’s discussion. Dr Vadhera emphasis that general awareness about AIDS is very important among adolescents as there is no known remedy of the disease.

Giving statistics, Dr Vadhera pointed out that annually 1,700 cases of AIDS come to the city from the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir. Of the 180 local cases reported so far, six have died. While 90 local cases of AIDS were reported last year, 80 new cases have been reported so far. Elaborating the causes, he said that 80 per cent of HIV positive cases are due to unsafe sex.

He also made the audience aware of various AIDS cells which have been specially created in various city hospitals to provide information about detection, better management and monitoring of the disease and its patients.

Dr Aggarwal, who is also a visiting physician with leading institutes of the city, gave tips on personal hygiene so as to stay away from diseases. She emphasised the role of personal hygiene for prevention and management of certain diseases. Later, the discussion was thrown open to the house for clarifying their doubts and queries.

The symposium was organised with a view to educating and spread awareness amongst girl students of the polytechnic regarding their general health and fitness.

Dr Ram Marwaha, Head of Paediatric Haematology, in his talk yesterday pointed out that proteins and iron are required in large quantities by children in their growing years. He advocated a balanced and iron-rich diet . Dr Marwaha disclosed that 5 per cent of the Punjabi population is carrying genes of thalessaemia. Nearly 350 children are thalassaemic in the city. He said that blood tests of girls should be conducted to ascertain that they are not the carriers of infection.

DR M.P. Minocha discussed about nutrition, good food and eating habits.

Director Health Services Joginder Singh emphasised that general awareness about the ills of smoking, drugs and alcohol was important among adolescents.

‘Physical development dependent on mental abilities’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 12 — Various sessions were organised on the second day of the WHO workshop on “Orientation training of the master trainers for the disability prevention and rehabilitation’’ at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, today.

The objective of the workshop is to train doctors in matters relating to prevention of disability and community based rehabilitation at the grass-roots level.

Prof Raj Bahadur, Head of the Department of Orthopaedics, GMCH-32, talked about various aids and appliances required for the rehabilitation of the disabled persons. He mentioned that these appliances were of two types — orthosis and prosthesis. Elaborating the differences between the two, Prof Raj Bahadur said that orthosis were meant for giving support to an existing weak or paralysed or deformed limb, while prosthesis were meant to substitute for the function of an amputated part of the body.

Dr Sanjay Wadhwa from the AIIMS dwelled on the subject of evaluation of physical impairment.

Prof Veena Parmar, Head, Department of Paediatrics, GMCH-32, talked about mental disability in the children population. She emphasised that prevention of disability was more important in a child because normal development of the child got hampered in a mentally disabled child. She pointed out that physical development of a child was largely dependent on the mental abilities. Dr Parmar lamented that in majority of the cases disability in children was missed during the early years because the complaints of the parents were taken casually by the doctors and the disability got detected only once the child started going to school.

The role of mental retardation in the causation of disability in society was highlighted by Prof Savita Malhotra from the Department of Psychiatry, PGI. She disclosed that the detection of mental retardation was usually done by the IQ ( intelligent quotient) test. However, the disadvantage of this test was that it gave lower values of IQ in illiterate patients so the prevalence of mental retardation got exaggerated.

Prof B.S. Chavan, Head, Department of Psychiatry, GMCH-32, stressed on the role of community based rehabilitation in mentally retarded children as its low cost, needed less technology, was more acceptable and reached more people as compared to the special education rehabilitation. He discussed the difficulties and obstacles being faced in the training and teaching of mentally challenged children.

Dr S.K. Verma, clinical psychologist, GMCH-32, highlighted the effect of mental disability on the psychological behaviour of the individual. He said that by using the abilities of these patients to the maximum and by ensuring their active participation in society, the psychological problems could be minimised.

Dr Ahil S. Paul from Sense International India, Ahmedabad, a voluntary organisation, discussed multiple disabilities appearing in the same individual. “Now, we find children with more complicated conditions and often two or more disabilities like deafness and blindness appearing in the same patient. He pointed out that by imparting proper education and training, these patients could prove very useful to society. He gave many examples of such patients with multiple disabilities working on high positions.

Dr Dwarka Prashad, a former clinical psychologist of the PGI, discussed about various IQ tests. He stressed about the three-way model of rehabilitation of mentally retarded children which included orientation of parents, motor-muscular coordination and training of parents to train the child. He suggested that the introduction of a short-term training course in the development and care of the foetus and the child for prospective parents might reduce the prevalence of the handicap.

81 donate blood
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 12 — As many as 81 units of blood were collected at a blood donation camp organised by the Shree R.R Social Welfare Association in Sector 22 here today in association with the Guest House Social and Welfare Association and the Blood Bank Society, PGI. While inaugurating the camp, Mr Satya Pal Jain, former member of Parliament, lauded the efforts of the society in this direction. The President of the association, Mr Subhash Narang, informed that the camp was organised to collect blood for the needy patients admitted in various hospitals and thalassaemic children.

Raju Arora,a resident of Sector 21 and Joint Secretary of the society, donated blood for the 43rd time. Another star donor was Mr Harish Arora of Sector 22 who made his 110th donation today. The blood samples were collected by an 11-member team of doctors and technicians from the PGI under the leadership of Dr V. Usha.