Kerala’s worries due to Covid-19 are far from over as the State on Friday diagnosed 3,972 persons with the pandemic while death toll reached 42,579 till date. Government doctors in Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam said the number of cases have been brought down only by reducing the number of samples being tested on a daily basis.
Health Minister Veena George said in a release that 66,788 samples were tested during the last 24 hours. A senior doctor in the Department of Health said the State has been alerted about the high number of Covid-19 cases by the Union Ministry of Health. “Though the State administration maintains an all is well façade, the truth is entirely different. Count the number of ambulances speeding to hospitals blaring their sirens and you can feel what truth is,” said the doctor who did not want his name to be quoted.
Elsewhere in the State doctors owing allegiance to Kerala Government Medical Officers Association, an umbrella organization of all State Government doctors continued in their stand-up agitation for the third day in succession. Hundreds of Government doctors staged a 10 to 5 demonstration in front of the Secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram demanding at least minimum facilities befitting that of medical doctors in other States and restoration of their salaries and allowances which have been slashed by the Administration.
“The ministers describe doctors as frontline warriors and other such praiseworthy terms. But more than that, what we need is good working conditions and salaries which would allow us to lead reasonably safe life. Our demands are limited and justifiable,” said Dr G S Vijayakrishnan and Dr T N Suresh, president and general secretary of KGMDA.
They also disclosed that the stand-in agitation would be continued indefinitely till the Government accepts the demands by them.