GPL fever grips Dubai; Master Blaster, Bollywood stars to witness final match

Kottayam, Apr 6: "I will leave this room within a week after defeating you," the braveheart nurse had vowed after contracting the deadly coronavirus while attending to India's oldest COVID-19 survior, expressing unflinching faith in Kerala's health care system.

Last Friday, 32-year old Reshma Mohandas lived up to her promise and walked out holding her head high to her home, where she is now placed under 14-day quarantine, after she and the elderly man and his wife were discharged from the Medical College Hospital here on being cured of th e disease.

Soon after 93-year-old Thomas Abraham, whose recovery has been dubbed as a 'miracle cure' by the medical community, and 88-year old Mariyamma left the hospital, Reshma too headed home but with the resolve to come back and serve the patients after the mandatory two weeks quarantine.

"I will leave this room within a week after defeating you (coronavirus)", Reshma had posted in a WhatsApp group of her friends and colleagues while undergoing treatment in isolation at the hospital.

"I posted that message in the WhatsApp group because I have full faith in Kerala's health system. It is world class," Reshma told reporters from her home.

The nurse, who took care Thomas and Mariyamma since March 12, believes she contracted the disease as she was in close contact with and often talked to the couple, who did not wear masks as it made them uncomfortable.

She said she loved taking care of all their needs.

"I was not tensed at all. I love taking care of elderly people. We used to talk a lot (in the ICU)", she said.

Reshma, who was earlier working in the operating theatre of another section, said she used work for four hours in the ICU before she contracted the virus and was admitted to the same wing as a patient.

"I had close contact with them in the ICU because I paid attention to address their every needs," she said. The first warning sign came on March 23 morning when she had a throat infection.

Reshma immediately alerted the head nurse, who in turn informed the doctors.

She was asked to visit the fever clinic at the Medical College and was later referred to the isolation facility where she took care of elderly novel coronavirus patients.

Some 20 nurses who had come into contact with her were sent to home quarantine.

On March 24, she tested positive.

"I did not have any other complications, barring headache and body pain", she said.

Reshma said she was ready to serve in the isolation facility for COVID-19 patients after 14 days of mandatory home quarantine.

"I am ready to work again in the isolation facility when I return," the feisty nurse, whose husband is an engineer, said.

She was all the more happy that proper medical care at the hospital led to recovery of Abraham and Mariyamma.

Kerala Health minister K K Shailaja telephoned Reshma to express her happiness over her recovery.

The Minister said the news about a health professional contracting the coronavirus was a matter of concern for the state.

In a statement, she hailed Reshma's dedication as a professional and said she had treated elderly patients like her parents, attending to their every need.

The elderly couple, hailing from Ranni village in Pathanamthitta district had contracted the virus from their son, daughter-in-law and grandson who returned from Italy last month, all of whom have also recovered.

Karnataka on Saturday reported 12 new cases, the highest in a single day so far, taking the tally in the state to 76.

Late at night, the Mysuru district commissioner said five more people had tested positive in the district. But it was yet to be confirmed by the state health department.

Of the cases, 41 are from Bengaluru, eight from Chikkaballapur, while Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts have seven each.

Interestingly, the highest number of patients are those from Dubai or those who had transit travel via Dubai. Out of 76 cases, 17 cases (22%) have travel history to Dubai, the capital of Emirate of Dubai and the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar, who is also in-charge of COVID-19 operations, said that Dubai has been a major concern as far as Karnataka COVID-19 patients are concerned. “Most of the positive cases have come through Dubai suggesting something amiss there,” he said. 

Echoing the same, Dr Prakash Kumar, Joint Director, Communicable Diseases, Department of Health and Family Welfare, said, “The layover in Dubai is around six to seven hours. We are seeing Dubai to be the new epicentre of the virus as far as India is concerned.”

UAE was initially not on the list of countries from where passengers were screened. It was added much later when clusters of patients with travel history to Dubai began popping up all over the country.

Patient-19 has infected the maximum so far.

Out of the 12 cases that tested positive on Saturday, five are contacts of Patient 19. All of them are being treated at a Chikkaballapur hospital. Two of them are from Hindupur, Andhra Pradesh, and three are residents of Gauribidanur taluk in Chikkabalapur district.

P19, a 31-year-old man from Chikkaballapur, had travelled to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and returned to India on March 14. Existing patient clusters suggest that P19 had infected the maximum number of people. Officials did not reveal how many people he originally travelled with to Mecca.

Amid the rise in cases, Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary (Health), maintained that the state had not reached stage 3. But he had no definitive answer as to how the Mysuru patient contracted the virus despite health officials he was in touch with not testing positive.

Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey said around 1,000 primary contacts of all positive cases have been classified as high-risk and low-risk. The high-risk patients are in government hospitals while the low-risk ones in quarantine facilities.

Mangaluru, Mar 8: The Saraswat Co-operative Bank Ltd., celebrated International Women’s Day with a special seminar on Financial Planning for the banks’ women customers. The programme was held on Friday, March 6, 2020 from 4.00 to 6.00 p.m. at Hotel Ocean Pearl Inn, Bejai, Mangalore. Dr. Sukanya Rao, academician and financial planner, was the chief guest and resource person for the seminar. Mr. Srinivas C., Karnataka State Head, Future Generali India Insurance Company Ltd., was the guest of honour.  Mrs. Vimala Anchan, Senior Manager and Branch Head of M. G. Road Branch of Saraswat Bank presided over the function.

In her chief guest’s address, Dr. Sukanya Rao defined empowerment of women as the ability of take one’s own decisions and utilize resources. Quoting global rankings, she said India enjoys a high ranking of being 9th in the world in political empowerment of women, whereas in other sectors we stand abysmally low. In social empowerment of women, India ranks at 120th, in economic empowerment at 124th and health and survival at 135th.

She suggested that the best tool for enhancing these empowerment rankings is education, which will lead to earning potential and result in enhancing social status. “Every year spent in school boosts girl’s wages by 10-20%,” she said “When a girl receives 7+ years of education, marriage gets postponed by four years and she has 2.2 less children.” She advised women to learn to take one’s own decisions. “Learn to take decisions, especially financial decisions, on your own instead of depending on significant others to do the decision making,” she said.

She followed up her talk with an interactive session on personal financial planning. She enlightened the audience on factors influencing our financial decision making and gave different perspectives on prioritizing savings, spending and investment. 

Srinivas C., Karnataka State Head, Future Generali India Insurance Company Ltd., along with Deepak enlightened the women regarding financial safeguards available under Married Women's Property Act (1874).

Established in 1918, Saraswat Bank was the first co-operative bank to provide merchant banking services after it was recognized as a scheduled bank by RBI in 1988. The bank enjoys high proportion of women employees (nearly 75%) and it is a recipient of Best Cooperative Bank Award in 2016.

Fun games were conducted and prizes were distributed to the winners. Bhavanthi Street Branch Head Karthik Shetty welcomed the gathering. Prithvi Pai and Aishwarya rendered the invocation. Naina Shenoy expressed the bank’s Women’s Day greetings. Chilimbi Branch Head Kishore Shetty gave a vote of thanks. Mahesh Nayak compered the programme. Past Branch Head Mamtha Rao was present.