Doctors wage war against rising air pollution in Kolkata

KOLKATA: The stage is set for doctors, environment scientists, civil engineers and green activists to come under a common platform to set the alarm off on the declining air quality in the city. As a first step, the Association of Chest Physicians on Saturday got various stakeholders together to work for cleaner air.

“It is high time that all stakeholders put their minds together to improve the quality of air in Kolkata.We will work together to bring the pollution level down. We’ll lay down a set of recommendations and forward it to the government,” said pulmonologist Dhiman Ganguly of CMRI Hospital.

Currently, around 20%- 25% of beds across city hospitals are occupied by patients with respiratory distress. Not only the rise in the number of pollution-related diseases, that the ailments are turning aggressive is also keeping the doctors worried. “If we notice the influenza season, it has stretched beyond usual period this time, with cases like H1N1 still being reported. The rising air pollution could be a reason,” said pulmonologist Raja Dhar of Fortis Hospital.
Apart from inlfuenza, cases like asthma, COPD and pneumonia are getting more virulent. Doctors have come across many patients with pneumonia requiring ventilation within hours of hospital admission. “Along with rising number of respiratory ailments, we are getting an increasing number of severe cases. Air quality is definitely one of the factors,” said Dr Hindol Dasgupta, organising secretary of ACP CON 2019.
“Apart from PM2.5, PM10 needs to be monitored in the city. The thrust should be given before it is too late. If the monitoring does not start now, the situation could go really bad in another five years,” said Indranil Mukherjee, professor of civil engineering at the Calcutta Institute of Engineering and Management.
Mukherjee and Anupam Debsarkar, associate professor of JU environmental engineering division, were roped in for the panel discussion during the two-day long conference. A study presented by Debsarkar pointed out 43% of urban children suffer from respiratory diseases in the state in comparison to 14% kids in rural Bengal. This, doctors say, is due to bad air quality.
“We have been working on making the city air cleaner. We want doctors to lead this war against pollution in the city,” said Ajay Mitta, an activist associated with Kolkata Clean Air.
To emphasis on the role that doctors can play on creating awareness — and also to test their awareness — the participating chest physicians were asked pollution-related questions with multiple-choice answers during the conference of Saturday. Alarmingly, 41.9% doctors admitted that they did not discuss pollution and its impact with their patients. Around 32.26% said they spent only two minutes on it. “We, as doctors, need to play our part in raising awareness on pollution and its impact on health, apart from treating patients, “ said Dr Arup Kumar Haldar of Woodlands Hospital.