CPI (M) Secretary Ghulam Nabi Malik on Wednesday said that doctors and health workers in Jammu and Kashmir, involved in testing and screenings of suspected cases of COVID-19 lack proper and adequate personnel protection gears and safety equipment like N-95 masks, PVC coated gowns and goggles.
There are reports that most of the medical staff involved in COVID-19 duties have to purchase raincoats during duty hours as they are not being provided with proper gowns. Similarly, testing centers are without required equipments while lack of ventilators can prove a major crisis in fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
Retired doctors are being recruited to fulfill the requirement in hospitals while as 600 fresh doctors, who appeared in the Public Service Commission (PSC) examination in early 2019 are in waiting list and are awaiting appointment orders. Their appeal for appointment is pending with the High Court as well. In this hour of crisis these young doctors can save lives of people, if they are given immediate appointment orders. Similarly, ASHA workers and Safaie Karamcharies are without safety gears and they being paid peanuts in the name of remuneration. In some cases the meager wages have not been paid for months together.
COVID-19 suspects, who have been placed in administrative quarantines, are not kept away from already known positive cases. There is need to keep these people in separate rooms which is need of the hour. Reportedly several people are kept together in a single room, that too with common washrooms. It can prove deadly for those people, who are negative, but have been kept in quarantine for surveillance.
Also there are reports that unhygienic diet is being provided to those kept in administrative quarantines, where eve proper medi-care is not available. While raising their voice against this ‘untouchable behavior’ of the administration people in quarantine were brutally baton charged and tear gassed on Tuesday at several places, particularly at Degree College Anantnag.
Similarly, residents in the area, which have been declared as Red Zones, are neither allowed to move out to purchase essential commodities themselves nor the administration manages their daily requirements as described by the authorities under SOPs.
