Shillong, May 29: The Meghalaya Congress party has expressed serious concerns over the alarming number of deaths of COVID patients in the state and Shillong city in particular. It is of the opinion that the reason for such high fatality rate is government’s decision for home isolation of the COVID patients and various inadequacies in the hospitals to treat the patients.
Congress lawmakers on Saturday held an online Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting under the chairmanship of Dr Mukul Sangma to review the COVID situation in the state and the performance of the state government in tackling the pandemic.
The CLP felt that the government is not prepared with adequate infrastructures and facilities to provide support for critical COVID cases, such as Oxygen, ICUs among other necessities in the hospitals of the state.
The party also appalled by the slowness in setting up of the COVID Care Centres (CCC) and fully equipped COVID Hospitals throughout the state.
Plight of ASHA workers
With elaborate roles such as creating awareness on health and its social determinants and mobilise the community towards local health planning and increased utilisation and accountability of the existing health services, as well as promoting of good health practices, the ASHA workers are the first line of health workers available to the people in villages in India. In the present Corona crisis, they are at the front in the dissemination of information on COVID-19, vaccination as well as taking care of the symptomatic patients, thereby putting them at great risk especially in view of the lack of assistance from the government in terms of proper PPE kits, sanitation materials among others.
Taking cognizance of this fact in the case of Meghalaya, the Meghalaya Congress criticized the state government for its neglect towards the ASHA workers, who are the first line of contact in this pandemic. The party said the ASHAs have been exhaustively attending to their duties without any incentives from the government.
The CLP appealed to the government to acknowledge the services of all frontline workers and incentivise them adequately.
