Lieutenant Governor, G C Murmu today called for expanding and up gradation of healthcare facilities across all Kashmir hospitals.
Chairing a high level meeting to review the preparedness of the administration and hospitals in Kashmir here at Raj Bhawan, Srinagar, LG stressed the need for up-gradation of facilities in hospitals and procurement of critical hospital equipment immediately so that all necessary facilities are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients.
The Lieutenant Governor asked the authorities to initiate the process of procurement immediately. He emphasized that lock down period has given us extra time to scale up our response to COVID-19. “We should use this precious time to augment our capacities and purchase deficient equipment like ventilators, PPE,” he said. “Besides this, the bed capacity for COVID-19 patients’ needs to be enhanced in hospitals and the testing strategy should be targeted and expanded further,” he added.
The meeting was informed that tertiary care SKIMS, Soura has already placed orders for Automatic RNA Extractors which would ramp up the testing capacity at SKIMS from 1000 to 1500 tests per day. It was informed that said facility has also been ordered by SKIMS for Government Medical College, Srinagar.
On the occasion, the Chief Secretary said that the procurement of vital equipment would be decentralized so that the Heads of hospitals and District Administration can go for immediate purchase of material and equipment required by them. He stated that funds shall be sanctioned and placed at their disposal immediately to facilitate quick purchase of medical equipment.
Lieutenant Governor also called upon heads of medical institutions to manage COVID-19 patients with co-morbidities at an early stage and treat them in hospitals so that mortality remains low. He also emphasized that doctors and health workers be provided adequate protective equipment to protect this human resource in our fight against corona virus as J&K has limited capacity of expert COVID health care professionals. He said that hospital workers need to be given proper training in use and disposal of their protective gear. He also asked heads of Health Institutions to ensure proper disposal of hospital waste in and around hospitals.
Lieutenant Governor said that there has to be more awareness among common people regarding use of masks and its repeated use. He said that downloading of Aarogya Setu App would help people to connect to essential health services and help the citizens to identify their risk of contracting COVID-19.