The IMA asked Health Ministry to “wake up from slumber” and mitigate the growing challenges in Covid-19 pandemic.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Saturday said the Union health ministry was showing “extreme lethargy” and taking “inappropriate actions” in dealing with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
The medical body, in its press release, said it has been insisting the Centre to impose a complete national lockdown for 10 to 15 days to “recoup and replenish” the country’s health infrastructure. The IMA, pointing out that the daily rise in new coronavirus cases has gone past 4 lakh and 40% of them were “moderate to severe” infections, said the sporadic night curfews have not been effective in breaking the transmission chain.
#PMOIndia #NITIAayog #LargestVaccineDrive #IMAIndiaOrg IMA demands the health ministry wake up from its slumber and responds to mitigate the growing challenges of the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/7OxKgLhi9Q
— Indian Medical Association (@IMAIndiaOrg) May 8, 2021
The top medical body also slammed the Centre’s vaccination strategy and questioned the supply shortage. Terming the differential vaccine pricing system “unhumanistic”, the IMA said it leaves those in the age group of 18-45 “under the mercy of state governments”.
“It is unfortunate the [health] ministry has failed to make the necessarily required road map and ensure vaccine stock,” it said.
The IMA, in its release, also questioned as to why the Centre was not providing for universal free vaccination, in spite of allocating Rs 35,000 crore in the Union Budget for the pandemic. “In 1997 and 2014, India could declare eradication of small pox and polio only by adopting the universal free vaccination and not by differential pricing system,” it said.
The IMA accused the government of “hiding” the number of patients dying of coronavirus, adding that 756 doctors died in the first wave of the pandemic and 146 in the second one. “Why we are trying to hide actual deaths?” the medical body asked. “If the public comes to know about the actual deaths, their seriousness to adopt Covid-appropriate behaviours will rise.”
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