Punjab Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan on Monday said that the state government has made all necessary arrangements to prevent a possible second wave of COVID-19. She also urged the people to follow the safety norms strictly and "Mask hi Vaccine hai" is the mantra to defeat the pandemic till such time a vaccine is available.
Presiding over the review meeting of State COVID-19 Management Group, the Chief Secretary directed the concerned departments to enhance the number of COVID-19 test to 30,000 per day so that the positive persons can be identified and treated at the earliest. She also instructed to further increase the number of oxygen and ICU beds in medical colleges and district hospitals of the state. Notably, there are already a sufficient number of beds available and the state is adequately prepared for any surge in the number of cases.
An official spokesperson said that there are total 1236 beds at Government Medical College Amritsar, 1450 beds at Government Medical College Patiala and 1025 beds at Government Medical College, Faridkot. There are 450, 600 and 301 Oxygen beds are available at Amritsar, Patiala and Faridkot respectively. The number of ICU beds in Amritsar and Faridkot are 92 each, Patiala (88). Similarly, there are 87 COVID ventilator beds in Amritsar, 67 in Patiala and 71 in Faridkot.
The Chief Secretary stated that there would be no shortage of funds to provide the best health services to people of the state. She also urged the private hospitals to come forward to partner with the state in the fight against the pandemic. She instructed the officials to use data and analytics as evidence for decision making such that the measures are timely and best suited to the scenario. This will also help the State reduce the COVID mortality further and ensure that citizens recover from the virus effectively.
Principal Secretary of Medical Education and Research Mr D.K. Tiwari and Principal Secretary Health Mr Hussan Lal apprised the Chief Secretary that there was no shortage of medical oxygen in the government medical colleges and steps are being taken to improve it further. The process to recruit health staff was also in full swing.
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While directing to ramping up the testing in those areas where the caseload is increasing, Ms Vini Mahajan asked the officials to pay special attention to districts with high CFR burden.
Additional Chief Secretary Development Mr Anirudh Tewari, Financial Commissioner Rural Development and Panchayat Ms Seema Jain, Principal Secretary Finance Mr K.A.P. Sinha, Principal Secretary Transport Mr K. Siva Prasad, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr Tejveer Singh, Principal Secretary Health and Family Welfare Mr Hussan Lal, Health Advisor Dr K.K. Talwar, Dr Rajesh Kumar and Director of Information and Public Relations Mr Ravi Bhagat were also present in the meeting.