Himachal Pradesh: Largest hospital witnesses huge rush, safety norms flouted

Shri Puri | TNN | Updated: Jun 8, 2020, 16:27 IST

Dr Rajendera Parsad Medical College at Kangra witnessed hordes of people on Monday.

DHARAMSHALA: Fear of coronavirus is decreasing while numbers of patients in the country is increasing. Evidently, Dr Rajendera Parsad Medical College at Kangra, one of the largest health institutes in Himachal Pradesh, witnessed hordes of people on Monday making top administrative officials to make repeated rounds of the health institute to assure safety measures in wake of Covid-19.
Nearly 2,000 patients arrived from various parts of the state. The norms of social distancing were visibly flouted, putting many others at risk. Long queues were witnessed on the gates of the hospital with no social distancing in place.
The medical superintendent and principal of the Medical College remained on toes to manage this crowd to assure safety measures for coronavirus in the health institute. Entry gates were closed and no one was allowed without screening as there were 400 other patients admitted in various wards of hospitals with their attendants.
When contacted, Dr Bhanu Awasthi, the principal of this medical college said that social distancing is not possible without public participation. “We can do nothing if the public is not aware. Best practices are in place to attend to the patients but people are not aware and fear of viruses is decreasing among them” he added.
The number of patients of Covid-19 in the state has crossed the mark of 400 while in India the number is creeping near 3,00,000.
Government officials claimed that they have published telephone numbers and online portals. But people who had arrived for the check-ups at the hospital said that they were not aware of any of them.
“The online portals are not accessible, those are not people friendly. No awareness campaign was there in our area so we don’t know about the tele-medicine facility” said Sukanya Devi (52) who had arrived to get treatment for joint pains.
RPGMC and IGMC are the only two major medical institutes of Himachal Pradesh. RPGMC caters to the lower Himachal area which includes four to five districts.