The Snake Bite Treatment Protocol


A six year old girl was bitten by a Russel Viper and admitted to a teaching hospital in Colombo within ten minutes.The parents caught the snake live and was brought along with the child.This is highly responsible behaviour in the part of the parents.The child was admitted at noon but died late in night after about 12 hours of admission.Antivenom is to be injected only if signs if evenomation is detected ,according to the prtocol.
The first signs of evenomation was blood stained urine which appeared six hours later .The antivenom was administered but the child died in a few hours.There seese to be some thing wrong in the treatment portocol.One does not have to be a doctor to make this remark.Common sense is enough to say that the protocol has to be reviewed. An inquiry is going on.It will be just like the inquiries about ,death of mothers due to contaminated spinal needles or amputation of the hand of a little girl or raping the patient and killing her by a doctor all of which are in archives of this blog.
No body will be punished.Only the little girl lost her life and her parents lost a daughter.
I wonder whether the Health Deartment will continue displaying posters requesting snake bite victims to brouht to State hospitals