Jharkhand’s preparedness for possible third wave reviewed

Ranchi: The state health minister, Banna Gupta, on Saturday lauded the health workers and the bureaucratic officials for their relentless work “which helped reduce the Covid-19 caseload in the past one week”.
“The manner in which our officers, in co-ordination with our health workers, have tirelessly worked to reduce the infection rate is admirable,” Gupta said, while urging them not to let their guard down and brace themselves for a possible third wave of the virus.
Gupta made these statements after concluding a high-level review meeting with the senior government officials.
The meeting was attended by the additional chief secretary of health department, Arun Kumar Singh, besides 17 IAS officers who head different cells for management of Covid-19 in Jharkhand.
The health minister reviewed various aspects of the pandemic’s management, including reviewing the infection rate district-wise, expediting the vaccination drive and the availability of essential drugs and oxygen supply. The officials presented a roadmap on strengthening the healthcare services to stop the spread of black fungus cases.
The officials’ preparedness to handle a possible third wave was also reviewed at the meeting.
Speaking to TOI after the meeting, Gupta said, “I have reviewed the status of the ongoing vaccination drive and we want to expedite it in the rural areas on a priority basis.”
He added, “Keeping the onset of a possible third wave in mind, we have planned for some major infrastructural changes in our paediatric care unit as we will require NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) and SNCU (sick newborn care unit) in large numbers in case the third wave starts infecting kids (as predicted by some experts).”
During the meeting, it was decided that state will require paediatric ICUs at CHCs, PHCs as well as at the district hospitals to treat the infected kids, if any. The government will consult the child specialists and paediatric hospitals to chalk out plans on a macro-level to treat the infected children.
The government has also planned to keep ambulances, ventilators and mobile RT-PCR labs ready to test and track the infection among the kids.
Meanwhile, asked about the government’s plans to tackle the shortage of health workers for treating Covid patients, Banna said they are planning to rope in the services of final-year MBBS students after providing them an initial training in the treatment protocols of Covid-19.
On being asked about the three-day relaxation given by the state government during a lockdown, Banna, while taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said, “The Jharkhand government does like to surprise people by announcing ourr decisions at the eleventh hour. We gave the relaxations as there’ll be strict curbs on the movement of people from Sunday onwards.”