Dengue: Government Asks Health Centres to Extend Treatment to Non-Beneficiaries

New Delhi:  The government today directed doctors at various Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) centres to provide consultation and primary out-patient services to all patients coming with symptoms of dengue regardless of whether or not they were scheme beneficiaries.

The Union Health Ministry said that the doctors stationed at CGHS wellness centres in Delhi and NCR region should provide these services irrespective of whether the patient is a CGHS beneficiary or not.

“All doctors at various CGHS wellness centres in Delhi and NCR shall provide consultation services and primary out- patient medical care to all citizens — whether CGHS beneficiaries or not — who may visit wellness centres with symptoms of dengue, primarily high fever,” the ministry said in a statement in Delhi.

CGHS wellness centres function between 7.30 am and 2 pm on all working days.

The Union ministry’s order comes in the wake of two more deaths in the national capital that have taken the dengue toll this season in Delhi to 30 even though the official casualty figure is yet to be updated.

Nearly 1,700 fresh dengue cases have been reported in the city in the past week, taking the total number of people affected by the vector-borne disease to 5,471.

Last year, the city had reported three deaths and recorded nearly 1,000 cases of the dengue.