The Odisha government on Monday directed State-run hospitals to stop all elective surgeries for decongesting the health facilities in the wake of the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases.
“Non-essential admissions are to be avoided while all elective surgeries are to be stopped. Only emergency surgeries need to be taken up with universal precautions,” said the State government issuing COVID-19 protocol for hospitals.
The move was in order to maintain social distancing, decongest health facilities and see that health care personnel as well as non-COVID-19 patients did not get infected, the State Health and Family Welfare department said.
As many as 1,741 people tested positive for coronavirus, registering a steep rise of 26% in daily COVID-19 cases. On Sunday, 1,379 persons were found to be infected. Two persons succumbed to the disease, says a health bulletin.
Emphasising on strict enforcement of COVID-19 appropriate behaviour in hospitals with infection control measures, the government ordered that central registration be suspended for the time-being and manual registration be taken up with due social distancing measure in each Out Patient Department to avoid large gathering at the central registration counter.
As per the notification, one attendant would be allowed for serious patients and no attendant inside the ward for ambulatory patients.
The government has asked doctors to avoid advising frequent re-visit of the patients if not required. People have been advised to utilise existing telemedicine services for their ailments. No representative of the media would be allowed either in the OPD and Indoor Patient Department.
Days after sealing of Odisha-Chhattisgarh border for controlling entry of vehicular movement, the government also deployed its personnel at the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border.
Balasore district administration declared a paper mill as containment zone after 101 employees were found infected. Sundargarh continued to be worst-affected district that reported 268 cases followed by Khordha with 204. Balasore and Sambalpur have cases more than 100.
Meanwhile, the State government closed down 700 vaccine sites for shortage of Covishield. Only 775 vaccine centres were functioning. Bijay Panigrahi, Director of Family Welfare and head of vaccination programme, said the State was expected to receive 2.71 lakh doses of Covishield soon.