14 gastro patients hospitalised
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, September 27
Giaspura locality on the outskirts of the city and adjoining colonies continue to be in the grip of gastroenteritis as 200 more patients reported in the OPD of the camp hospital. As many as 14 of them were suffering from severe dehydration and were shifted to Civil Hospital for management and treatment. The doctors at the camp hospital had so far provided medical assistance to as many as 850 persons having mild symptoms and 42 patients were admitted to the hospital. Four lives had already been lost before the authorities woke up and geared up to tackle the situation.

According to Dr S.S. Dhir, Senior Medical Officer, Sahnewal, who was heading the team of doctors at the camp hospital in the affected area, the teams of doctors, along with officers of Municipal Corporation and health department had visited nearly 750 houses in the area under a door-to-door survey campaign to detect the cases of gastroenteritis and educate the people about preventive measures, besides the distribution of ORS packets and chlorine tablets. The residents were also being advised to keep their surroundings clean to avoid infection.

Meanwhile, the MC officials and the area councillor, Mr Hakam Singh Giaspura, maintained that the water being supplied to the affected colonies through tubewells was not contaminated and reports in a section of the Press were false and motivated. Mr Giaspura, while talking to the Ludhiana Tribune asserted that the water was properly chlorinated and potable, which had been proved out by the analysis of water samples taken from different sources in the colony. He said some vested interests and his political adversaries were attributing the outbreak of the disease to the supply of contaminated water. 

991 examined at medical camp
Our Correspondent

Machhiwara, September 27
As many as 991 patients were examined at a free medical camp organised at Civil Dispensary, Jhar Sahib.The camp was organised by the Punjab Health Systems Corporation. Specialists examined the patients and distributed medicines free of cost.

According to Dr Harbinder Singh SMO, Machhiwara, the camp was attended by Dr Rajinder Singh Saggu, Director, Punjab Health Systems Corporation, Dr G. K. Sood, Deputy Medical Commissioner of Ludhiana, Dr S. N. Tiwari, Civil Surgeon, Ludhiana. Dr Karmveer Goyal from Civil Hospital Ludhiana made the people aware of health services and gave information about diabetes.

In his brief address Dr Saggu assured the people of the village that he would try his best to upgrade the dispensary to mini PHC. The village panchayat promised to give one acre land for the purpose.

The doctors, including surgery specialists Dr J.P. Singh and Balbir Singh; child specialist Dr Ashwani Sareen; dental surgeon Dr Vinit Gilhotra; gynaecologist Dr Rashmi Kapoor ; eye surgeon Dr V.P. Soni ; medicine specialist Dr Sanjay Kapoor and ortho specialist Dr Jaswinder Singh, examined the patients. Apart from providing free medicines in the camp, ECG and other blood and urine tests were also conducted free of cost. Dr Balbir Singh, in-charge of Jhar Sahib dispensary, thanked the villagers and his staff members for making the camp a great success.

SPORTS

Hockey, tennis squads for Punjab Games
Our Sports Reporter

Ludhiana, September 27
The names of members of the Ludhiana hockey and lawn tennis teams for the forthcoming Punjab State Womens Games scheduled to be held at different venues of the city from October 1 to 3 have been announced. According to Mr Sohan Lal Lotey, District Sports Officer, competition in as many as 10 disciplines including athletics, basketball and volleyball at Guru Nanak Stadium; badminton at Shastri Hall; gymnastics at the Multi-purpose Indoor Hall; hockey at astro turf ground of the Punjab Agricultural University; handball, kabaddi and kho-kho at the Government College for Women and lawn tennis at the Satluj Club, will be held during the three-day games. The names finalised for the hockey team are Avtar Kaur, Sarvjot Kaur, Kuldeep Kaur, Narinder Pal Kaur, Gurpreet Kaur, Chandni, Sarvjeet Kaur, Sandeep Kaur, Sukhandeep Kaur, Jyoti, Vijeta Bedi, Roopinder Kaur, Kulwinder Kaur, Kanwaldeep Kaur, Monica and Gurmeet Kaur. Ms Kusam will be the coach of the team.

Lawn tennis team will comprise Nidhi Gupta, Reeha Sharma, Amandeep Dhillon and Bhartinder Kaur. Ms Sonia Kumari will be the coach of the team.

Sidhwan girls win: Girls of the Guru Hargobind Public Senior Secondary School, Sidhwan Khurd, brought laurels for their school by clinching the title (under-16 years) in the North Zone Cluster XI and XII Handball Tournament held from September 24 to 27 at MGN Public School, Jalandhar. Teams from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir CBSE schools participated in the tournament.

In the finals, Guru Hargobind Public Senior Secondary School outplayed GNP School, Bhikhiwind, Amritsar, and won by a margin of 27 points. Prabhjot Kaur Virk, captain of Sidhwan school was adjudged the best scorer of the tournament.

Mahal to umpire India A- NZ tie: Another feather has been added to the cap of Dr Manjit Singh Mahal from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, who will officiate as umpire in the three-day match between the visting New Zealand team and India A to be played at Rakjot from October 2 to 4.

Dr Mahal, working as senior entomologist in the Department of Entomology, has already umpired one-day International match between India and England in February 2002, besides officiating as third umpire in the match between India and Zimbabwe at Hyderabad in March, 2002.