India's health care stakeholders call for lockdown

Even as the Covid-19 situation in India sees no respite, members of the Government's Covid-19 task force, major stakeholders of the country's health care system including the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to impose a minimum of two weeks nationwide lockdown to break the chain of transmission, ETV Bharat's Senior Correspondent Gautam Debroy reports

New Delhi: Even as the Covid-19 situation in India sees no respite, members of the Government's Covid-19 task force, major stakeholders of the country's health care system including the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to impose a minimum of two weeks nationwide lockdown to break the chain of transmission and rebuild the country's health care system.

"Yes we have appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to impose a nationwide lockdown at this critical juncture to break the chain of Covid-19 transmission effectively," said Dr JA Jayalal, IMA president in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat on Monday. Dr Jayalal had recently taken part in a video conferencing with Prime Minister Modi, members of the Covid-19 task force and other stakeholders.

The call for a lockdown which is seen as a last resort against Covid-19 was given following the fact that the number of active cases and deaths have been increasing alarmingly across India. The trouble has mounted following the fact that the pandemic has now spread to tier 2 and 3 cities. Last year when the pandemic started, it mainly affected the urban areas and metropolitan cities.

"To have a minimum possible healthcare delivery system, we need to emphasise on breaking the chain effectively at this critical moment. We have appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure a sustained lockdown for a minimum of two weeks which will give us enough time to uplift and upgrade our hospital infrastructure and its set up," said Dr Jayalal.

Ever since the second wave of the pandemic struck India, the country's health care system has collapsed with no beds, shortage of oxygen and lack of ICU facilities haunting the health care system. The country has been witnessing a rapid surge in active Covid-19 cases. In the last 24-hours, 3.68 Lakhs new Covid cases and 3417 deaths have been reported. Monday's total number is, however, six per cent lower than Sunday's spike.

We need continuous sustained and isolated lockdown, said Dr Jayalal. However, the government is considering all facts before going for a lockdown as such a decision majorly impact the common people, especially migrant labours. Lockdown also impacts the economic growth of the country.

Dr Jayalal, however, hailed the government's vaccination drive saying that the process was started at a critical time.

"Vaccination is the only tool we have in our hand at present to fight the disease," added Dr Jayalal. In the meeting with the Prime Minister, Dr Jayalal has also appealed to him to extend the Covid related health scheme to all who sacrificed their lives in the battle against Covid-19.

"The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana was a good initiative to uplift the morale of the health care professionals. However, out of 756 doctors who have died in their duty against Covid-19, only 138 received the insurance because of the bottlenecks present in the procedures," said Dr Jayalal.

The IMA President further appealed to the Prime Minister to ensure an effective tracing system as far as delivery of oxygen and Remdesivir medicine is concerned. "Like the speed posts and other postal service delivery system, we should also track the delivery of Remdesivir from beginning to end. If we can ensure this, the black marketing of the goods will be reduced," Dr Jayalal said.

Reports keep pouring from across the country over the black marketing of Ramdesivir medicine. In the national capital too, the police have recently arrested few people and seized a huge consignment of Ramdesivir medicine. So far, 30 FIRs have been registered and 42 people have been arrested in connection with the black marketing of Ramdesivir medicines, oxygen and oxygen concentrators.

Dr Jayalal said that the shortage of manpower is also a serious issue the country is facing in its fight against Covid-19. Already our healthcare professionals are loaded with Covid patients and other related works, he said.

Dr Jayalal suggested conducting the postgraduate examination. "At present, the postgraduate examination has been postponed. 1.78 lakh doctors are preparing for this examination sitting at home. And if the examination is being conducted, 45,000 will come to the post-graduation and the rest will be junior doctors. So, we should find out ways to conduct the examination so that 1.78 lakh doctors can be utilised," added Dr Jayalal.

Equally the final MBBS examination has been postponed. "So, if we can conduct the examination online, 80,000 interns will come to the hospital and it will be a great boost as far as manpower is concerned," said Dr Jayalal.