Govt will give ₹1crore to corona warriors who die treating Covid-19 patients

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday announced a financial assistance of Rs 1 crore for families of doctors, health workers and sanitation workers who

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday announced a financial assistance of Rs 1 crore for families of doctors, health workers and sanitation workers who die while providing services to Covid-19 infected patients.

HT Image

“If anyone, irrespective of whether they are from the private or government sector, loses their life while serving coronavirus patients — be it sanitation workers, doctors or nurses, — their family will be provided Rs 1 crore as respect to their service,” said Kejriwal, who along with Delhi’s health minister Satyendar Jain, addressed health workers in the city through a video conference on Wednesday.

Kejriwal equated health workers fighting against Covid-19 with the armed forces and pointed out how there is a similar financial assistant scheme in place for people in the armed forces who are residents of Delhi.

He further said, in case any doctor, health worker or sanitation worker is affected by the virus, all expenses of his/her treatment will be borne by the government.

Kejriwal said that his government is open to the possibility of having dedicated hospitals for treating virus-infected patients in case the numbers increase with time.

The chief minister also maintained that Delhi has yet not slipped into the stage of community transmission – a stage in which the source of infection can no longer be traced.

He said that more tests need to be conducted for a fair assessment of the scale of the spread of the virus, but admitted that there is a shortage of personal protection equipment (PPE) and testing kits in the city. He also admitted how multiple attempts to procure these essentials recently did not yield results owing to shortage in the market and logistical reasons.

“Once again, I urge the Central government to provide us with more PPEs and testing kits. For people who want to donate in the CM relief fund, I also urge them to help us procuring testing kits and PPE,” said Kejriwal.

He further said, “Security of hospitals is an issue. Patients and their relatives are angry. There is also certain stigma against people suffering from coronavirus because the disease is highly contagious. I have learnt about a patient trying to commit suicide in one of the hospitals. For security, I have already requested for more police deployment in hospital premises.”