Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Sunday said that keeping in view the upsurge in the COVID-19 cases in the state, the government would consider to impose few restrictions to avoid social gatherings and ensure that people take all necessary precautionary measures.
It is important to regularly monitor the COVID positive cases kept in home isolation as their number is more than those admitted in hospitals, the Chief Minister said while presiding over a meeting of the district level officers at Mandi to review the COVID situation in the Mandi district.
During the meeting, it was informed that under the Him Suraksha Abhiyan being launched by the State Government, the history of the entire 11 lakh population of the district Mandi would be taken by the team of the Health Department to ascertain how many of them are suffering from tuberculosis, hypertension, COVID, leprosy diseases and besides this, special focus would also be given to examine elderly people for different diseases.
He directed to ensure checking of fever and oxygen level of such patients besides educating them to take medicine properly in a regular manner.
The Chief Minister also stressed that these patients should be served hot food and water so that their condition does not deteriorate further due to cold.
Thakur said the health authorities should make efforts to motivate the attendants to attend their patients admitted in the hospitals by providing PPE kits to make patients feel better. He also stressed the need that COVID patients should be referred to major hospitals at the early stage so as to increase the survival rate.
He added that efforts should be made to hand over the dead bodies of the COVID patients early to avoid embarrassment to the family members of the deceased.
During the presentation in the meeting, Deputy Commissioner Rugved Thakur informed that 47935 samples have been taken for COVID so far in the district and 5390 people were tested positive.
There are 1178 active cases in the district and 4147 have been cured while the fatality rate is 1.22 percent. In the district, 37 percent cases of COVID are from urban areas while 62 percent are from rural areas.
In all, 66 deaths have been reported in the district so far. The maximum cases have been found in Pandoh Gram Panchayat where 199 positive cases have been reported, he added.
A presentation was also made by the Health Department in which it was informed that PCR testing is being done at Medical College Ner Chowk.
The Chief Medical Officer Devender Sharma said that medical kits are being provided to the patients kept in district level COVID Care centres and home isolation and they are also being given healthy food.
He said that the Mandi district has adequate supply of PPE kits, masks and sanitizers.
Principal of It was informed that Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Govt. Medical College has a facility of 118 dedicated beds for serious COVID patients and a dialysis facility has also been started for COVID patients, which has helped in saving the lives of over 70 percent of patients.
CM TO LAUNCH 'HIM SURAKSHA CAMPAIGN'
The Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur will launch 'Him Suraksha Campaign' on November 24 from the historic Ridge Maidan here.
Secretary Health Amitabh Awasthi said that the campaign will be organized from November 25 to December 27 throughout the state in collaboration with Ayurveda, Women & Child Development, Panchayati Raj Departments, District administration and various NGOs.
He said that under this campaign, health workers would collect door-to-door information of all the symptoms for the diseases like COVID-19, tuberculosis, leprosy, sugar and high blood pressure etc.
Awasthi said that for this campaign about 8000 teams would be formed. Each team would have two members. Information of various symptoms of COVID-19, tuberculosis, leprosy, sugar and high blood pressure diseases will be collected through a mobile application. If any symptom is found in any person, samples would also be collected for further investigation.
He said that under this campaign a free treatment facility will also be provided to all.
He said if anyone has any symptoms of COVID-19 like cold, cough, fever, loss of taste or smell, difficulty in breathing, etc. they must share their information with the health worker coming at their home and get their checkup done as per the requirement.
Similarly, if someone is suffering from diseases like sugar, blood pressure, asthma, cancer etc., they must also share their information so that all such people could be specially monitored, he said.
Awasthi further said that the cases of COVID-19 are constantly increasing in the state but there is no
need to panic as sufficient quantity of all types of health related facilities are available in the state.
