Mamata to hold an emergency meeting with health officials

Kolkata,17 April(HS): The Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will hold a video conference with the Chief Medical Officers of every district later this afternoon to know in details the steps taken to protect the doctors, nurses and other Health officials in every hospital and other quarantine and isolation centers across the state in the wake of reports of many of them getting sick and affected by Coronavirus.

I am very concerned at the growing number of doctors, nurses and other medical staff getting sick in several hospitals during the past few days and want to know what steps are being taken to save them and protect their life’, the Chief Minister said while deciding to hold an emergency meeting thorough video conferencing with all CMOs in the presence of respective District Magistrate and the District Superintendent of Police at 4 .pm today.

As per the latest report as many 25 doctors besides more than 52 nurses and several other health officials including at least two Superintendent of the district hospitals fell sick and were forced to go to self-quarantine during the last few days causing serious concern to the state administration about the sudden huge shortfall of medical staff in the city and elsewhere in the state. 

The situation has now reached such a pass that the health authorities were forced to seal off a number of major hospitals in Kolkata ad in several districts and patients from several wards were shifted elsewhere.

Though initially there were reports of largescale shortages of Personal Protective Equipment(PPE), N-95 mask and even hand gloves for the doctors and nurses, following the arrival of enough supply of these items from the Union Health ministry and the ICMR, enough stocks had been maintained everywhere. 

Moreover, a number of government and private agencies and MSME  industries have also started producing all these protective gears in mass-scale not only in Eastern India but across the country to meet the growing demand for such equipment. Even the South Eastern Railway has now started manufacturing these protective gears for the Railway doctors and others.