Three deaths and several cases of swine flu in the State have bought the State Government on its toes. Following the masked protest of the Opposition members inside and outside the House on Wednesday, Heath Minister Ramchandra Chandravansi said that measures were being taken on deployment of additional staff in districts, isolation wards and adequate supply of Tamiflu medicine is there to deal with the situation.
"The Government is fully alert. We have set up isolation wards in every district and medicines and masks are available adequately with wholesale drug dealers. We wrote a letter to the Centre yesterday to set up a testing lab in the State and in case of delay the Government is ready to buy the equipments of its own. We have also requested to upgrade the lab at RIMS," said Chandravansi assuring the members during the special discussion taken place in the Assembly.
Three persons -two at Jamshedpur and one at Ranchi-died on Tuesday after getting affected with the H1N1 virus while 11 other probable cases have come into light. The Minister added that five of the cases have been confirmed with swine flu. Over 1500 persons have died across the country with the deadly infectious disease so far with states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Chhattisgarh grossly hit.
The Minister also added that health staffers are being given special training to tackle the disease and appointments of observing medical officers have been done. "We are going to provide additional staff within a week and are in touch with 7000 doctors of IMA. Screening centres have been set up at Ranchi airport and railway stations of Bokaro and Dhanbad," he said.
Earlier, Opposition members in the leadership of Hemant Soren sported the green respiratory masks outside the House in protest of the death toll and alleged that the Government is ill-prepared to deal with the swine flu cases. Soren along with some others even wore the masks inside the Assembly and removed those only after Speaker Dinesh Oraon assured for a special discussion on the matter.
Putting the Government in the dock, Hemant Soren said, "Had the Government been on alert the lives lost could have been saved. I fear that death toll would go up further. Government should have worked on war footing. I demand to provide masks free of cost to everyone and also private hospitals should be incorporated to help poor as treatment of swine flu is quite costly."
Members in one voice expressed concern over time consumed by test reports to come from Kolkata and Delhi which in many cases prove vital for the patients. "The Government is also lacking in generating awareness against the disease and rural masses have no knowledge about symptoms and prevention from swine flu," said Jamtara MlA Irfan Ansari.
BJP's Radha Krishna Kishore termed the State as 'soft target' considering mass level out and in migration of the population. "Due to high-level labour migration the focus should be on the bordering areas. Facility of ventilators should be at least at divisional headquarters and the Government should coordinate with IMA to deal with the situation," he said.