By Sandra Singh Saturday, August 16 2008

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AILING: Plum Mitan resident Rajendra Rampaul, 24, who was stricken with dengue fever. ...

A two-year-old girl is warded at the Sangre Grande Hospital suffering signs of dengue fever, and residents of Poole Village, Biche and Plum Mitan yesterday insisted that there was an unusually high number of persons afflicted with the deadly virus.

They have since called for immediate steps to be taken to ensure the situation does not become out of control.

On Thursday, Health Minister Jerry Narace said there was no outbreak of dengue fever in Trinidad and Tobago. There have been six confirmed cases at the Sangre Grande hospital but residents are saying that many more persons have since contracted the virus. Rajendra Rampaul, 24, who visited the Sangre Grande Hospital several times for medical aid for the past week, told Newsday, yesterday, that private medical test results have shown that he tested positive for dengue.

Rampaul, whose skin was blistering red due to high fever was visibly weak and said that for the past three days he has visited the Sangre Grande Hospital suffering with all signs of dengue fever but was sent home.

“I went to the hospital on Wednesday and after waiting several hours was just given an injection and sent home. Right now I have tested positive for dengue. I am tired of going to the hospital because they just keep sending me back home. I am weak, suffering from high fever and immense pain,” said Rampaul.

He said that he and his mother have paid $400 each to have medical tests done privately. The results, he said, showed that they both tested positive for dengue fever.

“My mother was warded at hospital since Thursday with high fever and bleeding from the mouth. The doctors are saying that it is dengue,” said Rampaul.

Deosaran Sookram, who was kept in hospital for five days, said he, too, tested positive for dengue fever. “We went to a private doctor and were then taken to the hospital and I were warded for almost one week,” said Deosaran. Deosaran’s wife, Sumatie, complained that personnel at the hospital took hours before rendering any assistance to the sick patients.

“When you go to the hospital they are just putting you on a wheelchair and not seeing about you for hours,” said Sumatie.

She added that there was also a two-year-old baby girl at hospital suffering from the same symptoms of dengue fever.

“There are dengue fever cases from Biche to Poole Village to Plum Mitan. People are bleeding through their mouths,” said Gulcharan Mahadeo.

Shaffiran Mowlah, another resident of Poole Village in Biche, said that her daughter was warded at hospital for ten days and was even in a coma for three days.

“She had all the signs of dengue and they did a lot of tests but hospital authorities did not want to tell us whether it was dengue or not,” said Mowlah. She added that members of four households in her area also had to seek medical assistance after falling ill. These cases were however not confirmed by tests or doctors as dengue cases.

At the post-Cabinet media conference on Thursday, Health Minister Jerry Narace refuted media reports of a dengue outbreak in several parts of the country and stated that up to the middle of this year, there were 120 dengue cases reported as compared to the previous years where in 1990 there were 528 cases, 395 cases in 1996 and 447 cases in 2002.