States have been told to prioritize boosting medical infrastructure by filling the gap between demands and availability of necessary equipment.
New Delhi| Boosting medical infrastructure of the country to ensure that the doctors get everything they need for proper treatment of the patients is the top priority of at the moment, Lav Aggarwal told to media.
Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary to Union Health Ministry addressed media and said that Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha wrote a letter to cabinet secretaries of states on Tuesday. In this letter, Sinha told them to prioritize boosting medical infrastructure by filling the gap between demands and availability of necessary equipment such as masks, ventilators, and other items.
Aggarwal further added, “The states have been told that they must ensure that dedicated hospitals have personal protection equipment, ventilators, and other essential equipment.”
The states have been asked to put orders for the required equipment as soon as possible.
Ensuring that the government has started identifying manufacturers of this equipment across the country, he further added, “Procurement has been initiated so that there is no shortage of any medical equipment or masks which are required by the doctors to provide adequate services to the patients.”
He also informed that cabinet secretary on Tuesday held a meeting with senior officials from the Defence Research Development Organisation, Bharat Electrical Limited and other research organisations to ensure if the indigenous ventilators like the ones used in AIIMS, can be used across the country.
He added, “The states have been asked to build dedicated Covid-19 hospitals. Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa and Rajasthan already have started building dedicated hospitals for novel coronavirus patients.”
Talking about the letter of cabinet secretary to state officials, he said, “Cabinet secretary has asked the state chief secretaries to renew efforts to trace contacts of positive coronavirus cases. In today’s letter, chief secretaries were told to direct district administrations to strengthen surveillance and rapid response teams so that no suspected patient or high-risk person goes unnoticed.”
The centre has been coordinating with states to ensure that all essential services are provided during this Coronavirus epidemic, he said.
India has seen a spike in cases this week as the numbers crossed the 500 mark.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
