Mobile labs to screen travellers in Ahmedabad

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has decided to station vans serving as mobile dispensaries (labs) outside the Kalupur railway station and at the state bus terminus in Geeta Mandir.

The dispensaries will be well-equipped to screen ailing passengers for suspected cases of swine flu, and give preliminary medical assistance to those who need to be admitted to hospitals for confirmatory tests. Each dispensary will have four doctors attached to it.
The decision to station mobile dispensaries at key places in the city was taken on Saturday at an AMC meeting chaired by municipal commissioner IP Gautam. It was also decided at the meeting that the AMC would station similar vans near major eateries, shopping malls, theatres and hotels across the city.

“We have posted a mobile dispensary at Geeta Mandir and another at Kalupur railway station with a team of four doctors in each van,” said SP Kulkarni, AMC’s chief medical officer. “The doctors will examine ailing passengers and record their health details. This facility will be available to healthy passengers, too, who want to have a health check-up. Passengers and commuters will be examined in the same manner as travellers are examined at airports.”

He added that commuters can be referred to a hospital for a thorough examination if they display symptoms of swine flu.

The AMC also formed a team of 37 doctors to conduct check-ups in all the six zones of the municipal corporation. In fact, the doctors have already started their work and have already examined 19,833 city residents. The civic body is also trying to ensure that isolation wards at the three AMC-managed hospitals had adequate supply of masks, medicines and beds. They are also assessing whether the hospitals need more staff, an AMC official said.