A fortnight drive beginning September 15 for those pink and yellow ration card holders still away from the Golden card under the Ayushman Bharat Yojna was launched in the Medinirai medical college hospital in Daltonganj.

It was the civil surgeon Palamu Anil Kumar who took this opportunity to remind people there ‘not to forget the horror of the covid and not to remain unconcerned about the covid appropriate behaviour.’

Anil Kumar said “ As Bhado season is on and with it is the festive season but covid is not far behind.”

There will be people coming here from other parts of the country and the way people have said goodbye to masks, hand washing, social distancing is too dangerous a trend as this covid is equally mutating faster and deadlier.

He said one PSA O2 plant has been installed in this hospital where the agency has been asked to reach it in the manifold in 24 hours and there should not be any leniency or delay in it.

One such O2 plant is functional in Hussainabad, added the civil surgeon.

DPM Deepak Gupta said there were 40 private hospitals here in Palamu  that were having Ayushman Bharat tag but 22 of them have been suspended for various reasons of omission and commission.

Gupta added people having pink and yellow ration card should avail of Golden card which is to come to them all free.

The highlight of this ceremony today was that speakers lauded the role of the Sahiyas, describing them as the spine or backbone of public health management.

A Sahiya stood up and said patients of delivery, bone problem, stone in kidney etc are not accepted by the private hospital under the Golden card ambit saying the hospital gets a peanut for this and so such Golden card patients are shooed away by such private hospitals.

Gupta responding to this explained the situation in this regard to the Sahiya.

Civil surgeon Anil Kumar assured people of Palamu that health officials and measures are ready to defeat coronavirus if people observe the standard protocol of containing the coronavirus.