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Bengal starts equipping rural hospitals as Covid-19 spreads to villages
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has warned the situation could worsen over the next two weeks as she has allowed hospitals and nursing homes across the state to augment their bed capacity by 40%
West Bengal is equipping block-level primary health centres and hospitals with isolation beds, medical oxygen and ambulances as Covid-19 cases have surged in rural areas of the state. Officials said patients with Covid-19 symptoms and severe respiratory illnesses have been pouring into health centres in rural Bengal.
“...a large number of patients are coming with Covid-19 symptoms and severe acute respiratory illness. These cases need proper diagnosis and management to check the virus from spreading further,” said a state health department official.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has warned the situation could worsen over the next two weeks as she has allowed hospitals and nursing homes across the state to augment their bed capacity by 40%.
“The [health centres] and rural hospitals have been directed to keep at least 5-10 isolation beds ready, arrange oxygen and basic medicines...at least one or two ambulances on standby,” said the official.
District authorities have been directed to arrange for Rapid Antigen Tests in the peripheral health facilities to identify Covid patients.
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On October 22, when West Bengal reported the highest daily cases in the first surge -- 4157--Birbhum, Murshidabad, Hooghly and Nadia districts reported 82;110; 225 and 194 cases respectively. The districts reported 705; 593; 906 and 852 cases respectively on Thursday. This marked a rise in cases by five to eight times. Barring Nadia, the other three districts have over 1,000 active cases. The districts are among those which produce the maximum paddy in West Bengal and account for over 60% of the rural population.
On Thursday, West Bengal reported 18,431 cases and 117 deaths.
The government has also announced that it would deploy around 275,000 rural health care workers, who are often consulted by villagers for minor ailments in absence of qualified doctors, as the first line of defence against the second wave of Covid-19. The state health department is expected to issue dos and don’ts for their handling of Covid-19 patients.
“We can use this workforce. We can name them Swasthya Suraksha Bondhu instead of calling them quacks,” said Banerjee.
