No less than 40 police personnel recently recovered from COVID-19 infection, including Jalandhar Rural SSP Navjot Singh Mahal, have offered to donate their blood plasma to save the lives of others infected with the deadly contagion.
“The majority of these are from Jalandhar Rural, with SSP Navjot Singh Mahal himself leading the way after recovering from the infection,” said the state Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta, who has been personally reached out to his convalescent officers and men to donate plasma after their mandatory two-week recovery period ends, subject to fulfilling other conditions for such donation.
Gupta said that within 24 hours of the SSP Jalandhar Rural coming forward to commit to plasma donation, 40 other police personnel had also volunteered, followed by more. The blood plasma of two cops — Assistant Sub-Inspector Ram Lal and Punjab Home Guards Lakhwinder Singh — had already been taken.
All the 33 personnel recovered from COVID-19 in Jalandhar Rural had committed to plasma donation, said the DGP, adding that an increasing number of plasma donors were also coming in from the Police Department in other districts too.
In Batala too, both the cops who have recovered have volunteered to donate plasma while in Gurdaspur, of the two personnel infected, one has recovered and has offered to give his plasma. Kapurthala has seen 10 of the 14 infected cops recovered and three of them are listed as volunteers while the remaining seven had to be excluded as they were found to have co-morbid conditions. Jalandhar Rural currently has seven active cases and Batala has four.
A special link has been created by the Punjab Police for volunteers to donate plasma to help out other patients who were struggling with the disease, according to the DGP. “A special campaign has been launched to create awareness among the cured police personnel to come out for this noble cause,” said the DGP while lauding the Punjab Police corona warriors for their dedication to duty and service to humanity.
With most of the volunteers asymptomatic, their inherent immunity was higher, according to experts. The DGP said that with many other cops still under treatment for COVID-19, he expected to see more donors coming forward over the next few days.
As of July 28, a total of 831 Punjab Police personnel had tested COVID positive, of whom 336 had recovered. Of these 303 had recovered till about two weeks ago, indicating that the number of plasma donors could go up significantly in the next few days. Currently, the Department has 495 active cases and as more and more cops get cured, the number of volunteers was expected to see a sharp rise, said Gupta.
AIIMS BATHINDA TO LAUNCH 180/day COVID TESTING FACILITY IN 2 WEEKS
The COVID-19 testing will begin at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Bathinda with an initial capacity of 180 tests a day, and in a month’s time, will be increased to 500 a day.Besides, a 30-bed Level-II COVID Care Facility would also become functional at the hospital within a month.
The decisions were take as the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh chaired a meeting on Tuesday to review the hospital’s COVID care preparedness, which was attended by AIIMS-Bathinda’s Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Dinesh Kumar Singh and other officials.
Describing AIIMS-Bathinda as a highly prestigious institute of Punjab, Capt Amarinder said that the health institute would be of immense benefit to a large number of patients in the Malwa belt of the State.The Chief Minister assured officials from AIIMS-Bathinda all support from the State Government to facilitate COVID care at the hospital, where some ancillary construction work has been delayed due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Officials informed the Chief Minister that the Hospital is set to launch MRI, CT-SCAN and X-RAY facilities soon.Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan said that the State Government would extend all help to the institute to put COVID care and other essential infrastructure in place to strengthen Punjab’s fight against the pandemic.
On the construction of a flyover to connect the NH-54 to AIIMS-Bathinda, she said that the government Was taking up the matter with the National Highway Authority of India.