As the number of new Covid-19 patients touched the 27,000 mark on Thursday, the one and only organisation representing the Government Doctors in Kerala came out in the open exposing the shortcomings in the Department of Health and the lacuna in preventive measures that led to the unprecedented hike in the number of patients suffering from the pandemic.
“On Thursday, the number of persons diagnosed with Covid-19 reached 26,995 while the Test Positivity Ratio stood at 19.97,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in his late evening media interaction.
Kerala Government Medical Officers Association, the umbrella organization of doctors in Government Service broke silence for the first time in the last 18 months on Thursday and questioned the acts and deeds of the State administration in handling the Covid-19 pandemic.
A letter addressed to the Chief Minister by Dr G S Vijayakrishnan , president and Dr T N Suresh, general secretary of the KGMOA, on Thursday has categorically stated that Kerala’s infrastructure to take care of the Covid-19 pandemic is poor and sub-standard.
The KGMOA, the only service organisation representing all categories of doctors in Health Services and the moto of which is “Save Health Services, Fight for Quality; For the Members and For the Society” has told the chief minister in no uncertain terms that the public health infrastructure in the State is ill prepared to conduct mass tests ordered by the State Government.
Kerala is experiencing an alarming increase in the number of Covid-19 cases since the conclusion of the assembly elections held on April 6. “The RT-PCR Testing Facility in the State is overstretched and it takes days to get the final result. At this juncture, the order by the Government to hike the number of tests is highly dangerous and impractical. We do not have the human resources to carry out Mass Tests. The personnel manning the health services are overworked and overstrained,” said the KGMOA letter.
Pointing out the grave situation in the State, which had declared itself as Covid-19 free on May 8, 2020, the premier doctors’ organisation said that if the Government went ahead with augmented and mass tests without improving the infrastructure, Kerala would face a catastrophe which it has never come across in the past.
The doctors said that there were no laboratory facilities, antigen testing kit and human resources in the State to meet the emergency situation. “when you set up the Covid First Line Treatment Centres, Second Line Treatment Centres, make sure that you have adequate professionals like laboratory technicians, nurses, health workers to take care of the patients,” said the KGMOA, a silent apolitical organisation which has not made any unreasonable demand to the Government since it was launched in 1966.