Punjab Health Minister Brahm Mohindra on Monday minced no words in bringing forth the “reckless attitude” of other stakeholder government departments for giving ‘damn care’ to the waken up calls generated by the Health Department for doing their duty well in advance before the onset of mosquito breeding season, failing which the State has to witness the upsurge of dengue every year.
Among other, Local Government and Rural Development Departments were criticised by the Health Minister for its habit of paying deaf ear to the calls of Health Department.
Mohindra blatantly castigated the careless approach of most of the government departments for not discharging their administrative duty for curbing the outbreak of dengue in the State. He was speaking to the officers of other stakeholder government departments while chairing the crucial ‘State Task Force Meeting’ which was convened to take stock of the preparedness of other departments in controlling the Dengue outbreak. “Every year, Health Department unnecessarily earned the wrath of media and public for the outbreak of dengue,” he said adding that neither the media nor the public is aware of this bare fact that the responsibility of the Health Department starts when a patient down with dengue is admitted in the hospital, that too for the medical care and treatment for such patients.
He said that everyone is oblivious of the fact that Local Bodies and Rural Development Departments are the key players in tackling the outbreak of dengue and other water borne diseases. Mohindra said: “By saying so, Health Department is not shirking form its responsibilities and administrative duties required to done at our end.” Saying that the Health Department is fully prepared to deal with any eventuality, Mohindra said: “Department of Health has 33 labs in the State which have tested estimated 22,000 samples free of cost for dengue and all the cases of dengue are being provided free treatment in Government Hospitals of the State.”
“Apart from this, Staff of Department of Health has visited around 15.5 lakh houses to check breeding of mosquito and information of approximate 37,000 houses from where breeding has been found has been shared with Local Government for spray or fogging and other remedial measures,” he added. Mohindra said that it was the sole responsibility of Local Government to do fogging in the vulnerable urban area and Rural Development Department to do the same in rural areas.