Health Archives | Page 38 of 52

Lacking testing facilities, FSO ‘smells’ food, seizes stock, No testing facility for Oils, Milk

March 23, 2016March 23, 2016 Editor

The Food Safety Organization on Tuesday seized stock of ‘chicken leg pieces’ being sold by a retailer in Bemina on complaints of ‘foul smell’ from the meat, officials said. Assistant Food Commissioner of Food Safety, Hilal Ahmed Mir said “it was obvious that this meat was stale given its smell.” When we asked whether there was any other mechanism to check whether meat being sold in Kashmir markets was fresh and stale, Mir said: “In such` products, smell is an indicator for us. We do not have any other system to…

40% of combination drugs putting lives at risk: Doctors’ body

March 23, 2016 Editor

The Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) has raised concern over the presence of 40 per cent “dangerous” fixed dose combinations (FDCs) of medicines in the markets here. “The state is flooded with unsafe combination drugs putting lives of people at risk. At least 40 per cent of the FDCs in the market are irrational and these risky combinations are jeopardising public health,” said DAK president Dr Nisar-ul-Hassan in a statement issued here. “Though the state has formulated its own essential medicines list, the drugs have not been made available because of…

Who’ll check safety of foods in Kashmir markets?

March 22, 2016 Editor

The abysmally poor food testing mechanism in Kashmir is allowing consumption of dangerous eatables by people, with officials failing to address the problem that is assuming alarming proportions, stakeholders said on Monday. The adulterated food is leading to multiple diseases among people, including cancer whose rate had doubled in the Valley in the past less than a decade. According to sources, the Valley’s lone Food Testing Laboratory at Dalgate here is “good for nothing.” The so-called Laboratory has archaic equipment while archaic methods are put into practice to test samples…

Recurring tremors rock Valley’s mental health

March 22, 2016 Editor

Hospitals report increasing number of patients of quake trauma ‘Aawha’, roughly translates as “arrived”, is a common call of people in Kashmir as power supply is restored after an outage. This word, however, has taken a new meaning. Now, fear stricken people in Kashmir use it as a warning to shift to safer places during recurring earthquakes. The Valley was rocked by at least 30 earthquakes in 2015-2016, most of them registering a magnitude of around five and some touching the magnitude of seven. The tremors have evoked no response…

Suffering from CANCER, Go to Delhi, elsewhere

March 21, 2016 Editor

RX: Go to Delhi, elsewhere Falling Cancer CARE: Lack of diagnostic, treatment facilities forces ‘migration’ of patients to other states; No PET-CT scan facility in Valley hospitals; Surgeries take more than 3 months The growing cancer incidence in Kashmir has failed to move the successive governments in Jammu and Kashmir as infrastructure for cancer diagnosis and treatment has remained abysmally poor over the past one decade, according to medicos and patients. The Regional Cancer Center at SK Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) at Soura here happens to be the only…

Doctor booked for attempt to murder

March 18, 2016 Editor

Kashmir police today accused a doctor of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital (SMHS) of attempt-to-murder an unconscious patient. The doctor had allegedly disconnected her oxygen supply. A female patient was admitted to the emergency ward of the hospital after an operation, when the accused allegedly removed her oxygen mask. “We have filed a case under the Section 307 (attempt to murder) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) against an accused doctor of the SMHS after receiving a complaint from a patient’s family member,” said Karan Nagar SHO Parvaiz Ahmad. Doctors had…

GMC to do health profiling of Fakir Gujri

March 17, 2016 Editor

To understand the health dynamics in the city, Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, will do profiling of tribal people of the Fakir Gujri locality. “The GMC’s Community Medicine Department is starting extensive house-to-house visit in Fakir Gujri, a tribal area of Srinagar, on March 21 to get the health profile of all inhabitants and rate around 350 households on water purification, sanitation, ante-natal care and immunisation,” said Dr Muhammad Salim Khan, head of the department, Social and Preventive Medicine, GMC. The idea behind the profiling of people is to know…

Smart insulin patch to control diabetes

March 16, 2016 Editor

Washington, Mar 15: Scientists have created a synthetic painless patch filled with natural insulin-producing cells that can control blood sugar levels on demand. For decades, researchers have tried to duplicate the function of beta cells, the tiny insulin-producing entities that do not work properly in patients with diabetes. Insulin injections provide painful and often imperfect substitutes. Transplants of normal beta cells carry the risk of rejection or side effects from immunosuppressive therapies, researchers said. Now, scientists from University of North Carolina (UNC) in the US have devised another option –…

Unsafe drinking water infects 70% Kashmiris with H pylori

March 16, 2016 Editor

The consumption of contaminated drinking water has infected 70% of Kashmir population by Helicobacter pylori (H.pylori) virus, which is considered as the main cause of gastric cancers. Doctors say the drinking water testing facilities of Kashmir lack equipment to detect the presence of H.pylori. “Government water-testing facilities rely on coliform bacteria, a bacterial indicator to evaluate the safety of source waters, but H.pylori has been found in waters where coliform indicators were absent,” said senior epidemiologist Dr Nisar ul Hassan. He said unsafe water supply was responsible for H.pylori infection.…