Enlightening hospital doctors on snakebites

BHUBANESWAR: Around 30 doctors of the Capital Hospital were charmed by the volunteers of the Snake Helpline as they deftly handled numerous venomous and non-venomous snakes during a seminar on Thursday.A small hall was converted into a scene right out of the wildlife channels with the volunteers of SH handling and showcasing the 13 snakes they had brought for the seminar titled ‘Ophiology for Doctors’. Three of them were the venomous snakes cobra, krait and viper. “The seminar is a way to drive away the fear for the snakes, if any, out of the doctors. This will be highly beneficial for them while they are treating snakebite cases,” said Snake Helpline secretary Suvendu Mallick.The focus of the seminar was the awareness of the doctors and medical staff on the identification of the snakes, faster diagnosis of snakebites and the most importantly the first aid.“We have included images of the different kinds of snakebites and how they look. This will help the doctors know whether it was a venomous snake or not,” explained one of the volunteers Amit Mohanty.   Incidentally, Mohanty was bitten by one of the non-venomous snakes during the seminar itself which he dismissed as insect bite.“We wanted to know more about the snakes that live in and around the city and how to deal with them. The knowledge that we have  is limited and needs to be updated to   handle emergency situations,” said the seminar coordinator of Capital Hospital Dr M Sri Chandan. Capital Hospital receives snakebite cases on a routine basis and with the advent of the summer season, the number of cases is likely to rise.Currently, the hospital uses a polyvalent anti-venom (effective against a range of species). The doctors are always hard pressed for the stock. “Knowing if the bite is from a non-venomous snake can save a lot of anti-venom that is very hard to come across,” said senior medical officer Dr Banalata Devi.“The doctors will not be afraid of the snakes as they used to be,” said Mallick. Volunteers Snehajit Mishra, Swetashree Purohit and Anuja Mishra coordinated the seminar.