Masoodi cautions against complacency in combating Covid pandemic
Rues unavailability of vaccines, Testing Kits, COVId-19 critical care drugs in South Kashmir districts
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Member of Parliament from Anantnag Hasnain Masoodi on Saturday cautioned LG administration against any complacency in the war against Covid 19 pandemic.
Masoodi has said that tall claims made by the administration as regards preparedness to take up the challenge and commitment to employ all tools to defeat the deadly pandemic do not match the situation on ground.
Voicing serious concern over nonavailability of important diagnostics kits like RT- PCR in some of the Hospitals and alarming deficiency of such and other Covid combat components in almost all the Hospitals across south Kashmir, he said, “Tracking, Tracing and Testing being of utmost importance in overall strategy to fight the pandemic. The administration cannot afford to be complacent in providing diagnostic tools to our hard-pressed frontline warriors engaged in battle against Covid-19 pandemic.”
He further said that as per the available information administration has surprisingly fixed a target of 750 RAT and 750 RT – PCR tests per day for a population of 1.2 million in Anantnag district and like unrealistic targets in other districts; that as people in large numbers throng Hospitals to have Covid tests done, it is becoming near impossible for Healthcare workers to restrict the tests to the fixed target, resulting in a shortage of kits.
Masoodi has asked the administration to be realistic in fixing per day targets and accordingly make available diagnostic kits to the Hospitals in all the districts.
He has also expressed concern over the nonavailability of vaccines in most of the healthcare centres in Anantnag and other three districts of south Kashmir. The vaccination campaign, it is stated, resultantly has come to a halt in such areas. It is distressing that while millions of rupees are spent on advertisements through electronic and print media exhorting people to go for vaccinations, when people queue up outside healthcare centres, they are sent back without vaccination.
Masoodi has also asked the administration to take notice of a lesser number of people turning up at Hospitals because of lockdown as compared to pre-lockdown days in last week and ensure that mobile teams are deputed to rural areas for on spot testing.
He said the administration has yet to assign a leadership role to a senior officer who can be approached with important inputs and grievances and can come up with convincing answers and instead the administration is resorting to patchwork. “Delay in procurement of vaccines, now admitted by the government is attributable to absence of leadership and resultant lack of accountability,” he said.
He has demanded that in battle against deadly epidemic leadership roles be assigned to a senior officer, so that a sense of accountability is inculcated and responsibility fixed for lapses, if any, in meeting the challenge.
