State fighting swine flu only on paper: Gujarat high court

The state government's measures to curb swine flu menace, justice A S Dave of Gujarat high court on Tuesday commented, "Everything is perfect on paper, the difficulty comes at the time of implementation."

In response to various queries posed by the high court to meet the requirement in the epidemic-like situation, the state government submitted a report stating that the administration has achieved all targets set to tackle the situation.

When the government claimed that Gujarat has got lowest number of swine flu cases (3,305) in seven affected states in last five years, the judge inquired about the number of casualty. The government did not respond and the prosecutor went ahead with description of other arrangements made to deal with spread of H1N1 and added, "It (the disease) is in its last phase."

But the judge was not convinced and continued to highlight unequal distribution of resources in health sector across the state. "Most of the facilities are there is Ahmedabad and Surat only... There are nine tribal districts. What facilities you have provided there? They are also part of your state," the judge asked the prosecutor.

The government's document reflected that public hospitals in districts like Tapi, Junagadh, Bharuch and Anand have got no physicians, and Valsad, Surendranagar, Sabarkantha, Porbandar, Panchmahal, Navsari, Narmada, Dang, Dahod, Banaskantha, Amreli, Kheda and Mehsana have got only one physician each.