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Punjab CM moots research facility to combat Covid-like pandemics
The CM urged people not to be their own doctors but to seek the advice of the medical fraternity at the first signs of the infection
Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday mooted a research facility, under the guidance of national and global healthcare experts, for combating Covid-like pandemics and other serious diseases.
The chief minister, while chairing a virtual meeting of the state’s healthcare experts’ group for Covid management, extended his government’s continued and unequivocal support to the medical fraternity in battling this unprecedented crisis till Covid-19 is completely eliminated.
Urging people not to be their own doctors but to seek the advice of the medical fraternity at the first signs of the infection, the CM said his government was distributing food packets and Fateh Kits to wean the people away from hesitancy in going for treatment.
The video conference was joined by more than 250 health experts from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh, besides four foreign doctors.
Amarinder said Punjab will soon win the fight and succeed in pushing the disease back. The state, he said, was gearing up for a possible third wave and, despite the decline in cases, was not letting down its guard. Earlier, Dr Talwar kicked off the meeting by sharing the objective of the session – one of many over the past year. The aim, he said, was to set treatment protocols, guide doctors, and put in place guidelines for management of Covid patients.
He said it was important to ensure capacity building and monitor patients through well-laid-out guidelines as very little was known about the disease, adding that experts from AIIMS and PGIMER as well as from US, UK and other countries, had been participating in these sessions. Expressing concern over the high CFR in Punjab, Dr Talwar said the expert group was analysing all deaths to be ready to deal with future crises. He further said that unlike some other states, Punjab had made no attempt to hide or fudge its Covid death figures.
In a brief presentation, Group member Dr GD Puri, anaesthesia and intensive care head at PGIMER, Chandigarh, disclosed that as many as 130 classes, seminars, lectures and key discussions had been held so far. From time to time, the Covid management techniques were updated based on experience of doctors from other countries, who were battling with Covid much before India faced the crisis.
Dr Anup Singh, a consultant doctor from New York, said his hospital had shared experience of how it dealt with cases when health infrastructure was collapsing. “We limited use of excessive medicines and even steroids that’s why no cases of black fungus and other complications have been witnessed there,” he said.
