Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Close to a dozen peo­ple were seen wait­ing at the iso­lat­ed Am­bu­lance Bay of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, wait­ing to get test­ed for the H1N1 virus. And as the num­bers of pa­tients in­creased, hos­pi­tal staff were un­able to per­form tests in a quick man­ner. One par­ent, whose son was await­ing test­ing, shout­ed: "You know how long I (ex­ple­tive) wait­ing for some­one to see my son. This is (ex­ple­tive) stu­pid­ness!" He even threat­ened me­dia per­son­nel who were tak­ing pho­tographs and video footage of the crowd­ed sick bay. Around noon, the hos­pi­tal's med­ical di­rec­tor Dr Stephen Ram­roop ap­pealed to mem­bers of the pub­lic not to pan­ic.

He said as swine flu deaths climbed, more and more peo­ple were rush­ing in­to the hos­pi­tal, fear­ful that they had con­tract­ed the virus. "Most of the peo­ple have the com­mon cold and they are run­ning to ca­su­al­ty," Ram­roop said. "There is now an in­flux at the ca­su­al­ty. I want to let peo­ple know that we will not be test­ing every­body." "A cold is go­ing about and peo­ple have to wait and mon­i­tor their ill­ness. If they are get­ting body pains and short­ness of breath, then they can come to the hos­pi­tal and get test­ed. If they have just a nor­mal cold, they have to stay at home and treat it."

How­ev­er, sev­er­al peo­ple who were wait­ing at the iso­lat­ed Am­bu­lance Bay said they were un­hap­py at the slow pace of prog­no­sis. Dil­lon Mor­ris, of Pe­nal, said his son Dar­ryl Mor­ris fell ill on Fri­day. He said Dar­ryl was tak­en to a pri­vate doc­tor who pre­scribed med­ica­tion. How­ev­er, he said when Dar­ryl's con­di­tion wors­ened, he de­cid­ed to come to the hos­pi­tal. "I got here af­ter 8 am and it is now 11 am," Mor­ris said. "We are just wait­ing and wait­ing here and no­body is com­ing to see about us. We have over a dozen peo­ple here and no­body is get­ting test­ed."

About the virus:

?High risk cat­e­gories:

Preg­nant women. Chil­dren un­der five years of age. Peo­ple with chron­ic med­ical con­di­tions, in­clud­ing asth­ma and oth­er lung con­di­tions. Sick­le cell anaemia. Heart dis­ease. Di­a­betes. Obe­si­ty. HIV/Aids. Any oth­er con­di­tion

af­fect­ing the im­mune sys­tem.

Guide­lines:

Wash your hands of­ten with soap and wa­ter or with an al­co­hol-based hand sani­tis­er. Cough or sneeze in­to a tis­sue or your el­bow in­stead of in­to your hands and prop­er­ly dis­pose of the tis­sue. Avoid con­tact with peo­ple who have res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es. Seek med­ical as­sis­tance if you show any of the fol­low­ing emer­gency warn­ing signs.

In chil­dren:

Fast breath­ing or trou­ble breath­ing. Not drink­ing enough flu­ids. Be­ing so ir­ri­ta­ble that the child does not want to be held. Flu-like symp­toms im­prove but then re­turn with fever and worse cough. Fever with a rash.

In adults:

Dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing or short­ness of breath. Pain or pres­sure in the chest or ab­domen. Sud­den dizzi­ness. Con­fu­sion. Se­vere or per­sis­tent vom­it­ing.