Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders including former party president K. Laxman, city president and MLC N. Ramchander Rao, MLA T. Raja Singh and others will try to march towards the Pragati Bhavan from Punjagutta crossroads to meet Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on the COVID-19 issue on June 12.
This was stated by Mr. Laxman on Thursday after he released his letter written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, urging him to send a “high-power delegation on war-footing with the power to take instantaneous decisions and accord instructions to save the people of Telangana and Hyderabad, already showing signs of rampant community spread”.
The TS government was charged with being “inexplicably callous” in extending quality treatment to the affected, in taking measures of containment, equipping hospitals with necessary wherewithal like requisite number of ICU wards with ventilators, oxygen cylinders, PPE kits for the front line warriors, N95 masks etc.
“It is neither testing people on a large scale nor is allowing them to approach labs and hospitals for tests when they have an element of doubt,” said Mr. Laxman and pointed out that save for Gandhi Hospital, under severe strain due to manpower and infrastructure deficiencies, no other hospital has been made ready in the last two months.
Bringing the 1,500-bed Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences hospital at Gachibowli into use immediately would facilitate shifting a few patients from Gandhi Hospital. The TS government had conducted 38,470 tests when national testing average per million was 3,686, Telangana’s average is just 646. The percentage of positive rate in TS was 10%, twice the national average.
While the government had not fully permitted private hospitals to extend treatment, some of them were charging huge sums in the name of a package. “People are gripped by fear over voronavirus, hence treatment should be brought under Arogyasree/ Ayushman Bharath scheme and every hospital should be permitted to treat as per ICMR guidelines,” said Mr. Laxman.
“This is no time to make complaints but the TS government is nonchalant and apathetic, leaving people to their fate even as the medical fraternity is completely demoralised with junior doctors on strike. There have been cases of bodies being misplaced or handed over to wrong families. Under the circumstances, we have no option but to request your intervention,” he added.
Flights to Gulf
BJP TS chief Bandi Sanjay also wrote to the Union government requesting running of special flights to the Gulf nations to bring back the scores of labourers stranded there ever since the pandemic broke out as their condition was pitiable with no jobs and incomes.