As directed by the State government, the Mangaluru City Corporation has formed ward-level COVID-19 task force committees in 60 wards of the city for monitoring COVID-19 patients and their primary contacts. The committee will be facilitating testing, arranging for ration for patients and also taking micro containment steps.
Corporation Commissioner Akshy Sridhar said that the ward-level task force committees will comprise local councillors, nodal officers from the corporation, multi-purpose workers and 10 volunteers each. They will be attached to the Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC) that covers about seven wards. Each one of the 10 UPHCs will have a team of officers from the corporation who will coordinate with the ward-level committees.
Mayor Premanand Shetty said that a list of COVID-19 patients in home quarantine and new cases will be bifurcated ward-wise and provided to the ward-level committees. These members will along with local health workers go to the houses of these patients, enquire about their health and make arrangements for medicine and their other needs. The committees have been given responsibility to trace primary contacts and make arrangements for isolating them at COVID care centres in the area concerned, if needed. The committees have been permitted to paste posters outside houses or in a locality as part of COVID-19 containment efforts, he said.
Mr. Shetty said that the corporation will put to use the mobile testing facilities that will help in collecting samples in the wards. Each ward will be given two autorickshaws fitted with loud speakers for making people aware of COVID-19 guidelines.
The corporation has identified three shelter homes in the city where those without shelter, who are now found at bus stops and other public places, will be lodged. Food and other arrangements are being made for them, he said.
In Udupi
In a video conference to review steps in Udupi district on Monday, Home Minister and district in-charge Basavaraj Bommai asked officials to provide kits containing medicine and other essential items for all those in home isolation.
The ward-level and village-level task force members have been asked to keep regular contact with people in isolation and make arrangements to shift them to nearby health facilities if their oxygen level is coming down. Timely treatment will prevent fatalities, Mr. Bommai said.
