The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

From Schools
Teachers exhorted to play a constructive role
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 11
A three-day seminar-cum-workshop for the training of teachers organised at DAV Public School, B R S Nagar, concluded here today. Dr Ashok Saini, Professor and Honorary. Executive Director of the Indian Society of Health Administrators (ISHA), Bangalore, was the resource person of the seminar. Dr Sahni, who is consultant to the UNO and WHO, stressed upon the fact that there was an urgent need for counselling of parents and teachers as there was a lot of pressure on the younger generation.

He said the children should be helped in selecting a career according to their capabilities and inclination. During the course of the workshop, Dr Saini guided the teachers to become more effective teachers and counsellors, to design innovative and creative curriculum for creative development of students, to counsel the students for career planning and to handle stresses and strains. He also conducted counselling session for the students as well as for the parents.

Foundation Day

Green Grove Public School, Khanna, celebrated its Founder’s Day today. A solemn function was organised to mark the day. The school wore a festive look. The ceremony began with ‘shabad kirtan’ and ‘bhajans’. Light was thrown on the background and the achievements of the school by Ms Glaxy Sofat in her introductory speech. The aims and objectives and the special features of the school were highlighted by Parminder, a student of Class X. Teachers also recited a bhajan ‘‘Payoji Maine Ram Rattan Dhan Payo...’’.

The ceremony ended with a vote of thanks by Ms Amandeep Kaur. Members of the school management were also present on the occasion. The Principal, Ms Suzy George, congratulated the staff and students on the occasion.

Anniversary celebrations

The Darpan Institute for autistic children celebrated its first anniversary here yesterday. The speech therapist, Mr Niranjan, with the support of some prominent doctors of the city had set up this institute for training special children, who because of their hyper nature were difficult to handle in normal schools.

Senior staff members of the College of Nursing, CMCH, alongwith students attended the function. Mr Niranjan and Ms Poonam Kalra informed the parents of these children about the progress made and the difficulties experienced while teaching the children.

It was informed that due to lack of awareness and initiative, parents did not send their children for special classes. Autism was a developmental disability in which speech and language were absent or delayed while specific thinking capabilities might be present.

Seminar on drug de-addiction
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 11
The NSS unit of Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College organised a seminar on drug de-addiction here yesterday.

Dr Rupinderpal Singh of Government College and Dr Amritpal Singh of Veterinary College were invited for the talk.

Dr Amritpal Singh told the students that un-employment was one of the reasons for increasing the drug addiction. Dr Rupinderpal Singh told the students about the importance of Gurbani and soul satisfaction.

Women honoured

The Shaheed Memorial Sewa Society organised Great Women’s Day at Ramgarhia College here on Tuesday. More than 23 women were honoured. Mr Rakesh Pandey was the chief guest.

In his address, he said the women played a great role in society.

They should be encouraged and supported by all. Female foeticide was the heinous crime and the guilty should be punished.

Computer software developed for fool-proof diagnosis
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 11
‘‘Since time immemorial the medical professionals and experts have been making vital clinical decisions on the basis of perception, which tend to cause errors and lead to grave concerns in terms of morbidity or mortality, affecting millions of lives, along with the loss of resources worth billions of dollars the world over.’’

According to Dr S.C. Garg, a city doctor and former Chief Medical Officer, who has developed an innovative medical diagnostic software, factors like limited inherent human memory, dilution of inter-speciality interface, geographic variability of disease patterns, as also the variability of knowledge acquisition, individual speciality interest and qualification levels in the field of internal medicine, contributed to clinical lapses.

That accurate diagnosis of diseases was of immense importance for the medical professionals and the people at large, was evident from the fact that in a developed country like the UK, the errors or delays in diagnosis resulted in colossal loss of resources to the tune of 2 billion pounds yearly due to over occupancy of hospital beds. Similarly, an estimated one lakh persons died in US hospitals every year due to diagnostic errors.

He said the diagnostic software, for which patent application was pending and a demonstration of the system had been made at the Directorate General of Health Services, New Delhi, in May last year, will provide interactivity (when all diseases data take part in decision making), spontaneity (results in front of eyes in seconds), thereby offering a lot in clinical safe decision making.

The software promised to constitute a valuable tool of medical IT along with effortless learning, revising and refreshing whole lot of clinical medicine.

Dr Garg informed that the computer-assisted diagnosis would have the benefit of ‘‘prioritised disease detection’’ through software creativity and applications. It will be further supported and substantiated through disease study as the ‘‘computer’s memory’’ could hold data rather limitlessly and in a secure manner.

Further, the innovative software would provide fast interactivity in seconds by running across millions of disease parameters, permutations and combinations which was impossible to be tackled through mind and memory alone.

‘‘These medical IT applications will not only build bridges for integrating knowledge of creators for users, it will provide marvellous results and overcome the menace of missed or delayed diagnosis, caused through perceptional method.’’

Dr Garg maintained that in the present times, with the dissemination of awareness and awakening amongst the people, their expectations from the medical professionals were ever increasing. They wanted the doctors to be more exacting and the profession could ill afford to be complacent .

‘‘The present option of objective decision making through data programming and hardware applications can contribute to achieve greater accuracy to the satisfaction of both the patients and professionals. A little effort to be computer savvy is all that is important.’’

Claiming that the innovative computer software had already been accepted under ‘‘Intellectual Property Rights’’ by the Patents office of the Government of India, Dr Garg pleaded that the same should be put to use in all government and private medical institutions so that it could help to save millions of lives from killer errors, human resources worth billions and unlimited human productivity hours.

Moreover, its application would also drastically cut down the cost of treatment through prompt diagnosis and doing away with expensive investigations.

UK students laud NGOs role in health services
Our Correspondent

Mandi Ahmedgarh, April 11
The MBBS students of Warwick Medical University, West Midland, UK, appreciated the role of NGOs in providing free and selfless medical services to people in rural areas of the state and claimed that the government alone would have failed to cater to the needs of the people in the absence of help from NGOs.

While talking to the Ludhiana Tribune after the conclusion of a three-day free medical camp organised jointly by Ram Sharnam Ashram and Hind Hospital, Ms Neena Randhawa, Ms Uma Selvarajah and Mr Khaik Kee Peh claimed that they had not noticed such an enthusiasm among professional doctors.

The medical students, besides funding the camp had associated themselves with all aspects of camp as a part of their study tour.

‘‘We are happy that the funds, we had raised on last Baisakhi at West Midland have been used in a project held for a noble cause and the organisers allowed us to serve the ailing humanity,’’ expressed Ms Neena Randhawa. Besides helping in examination and education of hundreds of eye patients these students watched around 30 intra-ocular surgeries performed at the camp and that added to their practical experience.

‘‘As procedure adopted by the Indian surgeons was different from that practiced in England we now have an edge over our colleagues,’’ claimed Mr Khaik Kee Peh.

NSS volunteers administer polio drops
Our Correspondent

Samrala, April 11
Following directions by Ms Hirdey Pal, Assistant Director, Youth Services, Ludhiana, a big rally was organised by NSS volunteers of Government Secondary School at Ghungrali Sikhan and nearby villages under the guidance and leadership of Principal Gurmeet Kaur Dhaliwal and NSS programme officer Jatinder Kumar.

The ceremony was inaugurated by the school Principal and Mr Tehal Singh Dhande, former senior lecturer at Ghungrali Sikhan village.

Mr Manmohan Kumar Puri, in charge, MPHC, along with Mr Gurdip Singh, Ms Mohinder Kaur, Mr Bhinder Singh, Inspector, Mr Sarabjeet Singh, Lecturer, and the NSS volunteers helped the Health Department throughout the day. They administered polio drops to children under five years at Ghungrali Sikhan, Sangatpura, Bhangalan, Unchi Bondal, Jhamlutti and Dyalpura villages.

The gram panchayats of different villages thanked the Principal, programme officer and the NSS volunteers for their cooperation.

Nursing students help in polio drive
Our Correspondent

Sahnewal , April11
As many as 40 students of the Satguru Institute of Nursing participated in the pulse polio drive launched on April 9 .

Dr S.S. Dhir, SMO, Sahnewal, said students of the institute, as always, participated in the campaign in the town and surrounding villages.

Inaugurating a booth at the bus stand in the town, Mr Harpal Singh, Director of the institute, and Ms Sawdeep Priya, Principal , said students of their school were inspired to participate in various campaigns, seminars and rallies organised for the betterment of health services from time to time. "This time too our students are showing special interest in continuing a door-to-door campaign as far as the pulse polio drive is concerned," Mr Harpal Singh added.

Meanwhile, the community health centre here made special efforts to administer polio drops to the children who were poor, needy and failed to avail immunisation either due to financial constraints or lack of awareness.