Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Apr 25: Expressing fears about the coronavirus pandemic scenario getting worsened by the day, MP Shobha Karandlaje has asked chief minister (CM) B S Yediyurappa to declare health emergency and take over 50 percent beds in all the private hospitals and form a workforce to make this happen.

In a letter to the CM, Karandlaje expressed concerns about the possibility of manifold rise in the number of patients as affected persons from other states are coming into Karnataka. The reverse is also true as infected people from here might go to other states and spread the disease there. This situation has alarmed the people, she said, giving certain suggestions to handle the situation in a more efficient way.

Karandlaje has recommended for increasing the number of dedicated lines given to the BBMP helpline from the crurrent 30 to 100 and distribute the work in three shifts to professionals. She has recommended providing a thousand additional ventilators to Bengaluru and also to increase ventilators in smaller hospitals with the financial support of the government.

She said that a ventilator company, Sunray, located at Mysuru, has supplied over 30.000 ventilators to the centre in one year whereas the Karnataka government which placed demand for a thousand ventilators, has procured only 130. She said that the health department has to understand the seriousness of the situation and encourage ventilators and oxygen producers and buy equipment from them immediately.

She wants the health department to publish the availability of Remdisiver and oxygen on a daily basis and relieve the people of the anxiety they go through about the availability of medicines and their future.

She noted that patients not needing emergency care too get admitted into hospitals, and suggested setting up a help desk in each hosptial with a doctor and a team of officials to assess whether the patients need to be admitted, and thereby avoiding unnecessary pressure on beds, oxygen, and ventilators.

Shobha has suggested to see that people are checked in respecteivewards of the city and respective rural places in other places. In the case of deceased persons, their bodies should be kept in the mortuary and sent to the graveyards through token system to avoid lining up of ambulances.

She also has asked the CM to convert schools, colleges, hostels and hostels into Covid care centres as more beds and ventilators would be needed in the coming days. She also wants plasma collection facilities to be increased as there is a lot of demand for covid plasma.