by Bhupen Goswami
GUWAHATI : The Assam Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma today chaired a review meeting of Health Department at his conference room at Janata Bhawan and took stock of Covid-19 scenario in the state. In view of decreasing death rate and positivity rate in the state, the Chief Minister expressed confidence that situation will improve substantially in the next few weeks.
In order to bring the positivity and death rates further down, the Chief Minister directed the department not to allow home quarantine to Covid patients of any age group with comorbidity and refer them to institutional quarantine. In the meeting, the Chief Minister also discussed the issue of fixing the rate of private hospitals for Covid treatment and patient friendly reasonable prices were fixed for Covid treatment in both general wards and super-specialty wards in private hospitals. The rates were decided so that no discrepancy remains in charging the patients for healthcare services in private hospitals in both general and super-speciality wards in this time of the pandemic.
The Chief Minister also reviewed the status of Paediatric ICUs, which are being set up at various government hospitals and functioning 13 oxygen plants in the state apart from status of installation of 6 oxygen plants provided by Central Government to the state. Dr. Sarma also directed to increase daily vaccination to inoculate maximum number of people at the earliest. With the new supply of Covaxin and Covishield to arrive in the state in the next few days, the vaccination must speed up to cover as many people as possible in the shortest time, he said.
The Chief Minister also directed the health department to explore the option of funding private hospitals with interest free loans so that they can purchase vaccines directly from manufacturers under 25 percent quota reserved for private sector by the Central Government. This way, more people would be covered by the vaccination net through the private hospital route, he said. Health Minister Keshab Mahanta, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Samir Kumar Sinha, Principal Secretary of the Health Department Anurag Goel, NHM Assam MD Lakshmanan. S were also present in the meeting.