By Anup Biswas

Haflong. : The Construction of the Haflong Covid ICU will be completed this month assured Superintendent of Haflong Civil Hospital Dr Kalpana Kemprai. She said recently, the engineer of the construction department has checked the progress of the work and assured that the ICU would be completed soon.

At present Haflong Covid Hospital has only 68 general beds. Also there is enough oxygen so far but some more oxygen is needed considering the situation. She added that CEM Debolal Garlosa of the North Cachar Hill Autonomous Council has also visited the hospital on Wednesday to take the stock of the situation as well as approve the bringing of forty additional oxygen cylinders.

It is to be noted that the number of Covid infected people is increasing day by day in Dima Hasao district. In the last one month, the number of Kovid infections has exceeded 300. Currently there are 176 active. But in that proportion, Haflong Civil Hospital, the only civil hospital in districts, does not have ICU for covid patients.

Although the tender process was completed in February, the ICU block has not been constructed till date. Meanwhile, patients with covid have started coming but  as there is no ventilation system in Haflong the patients were to reffered to Guwahati. Construction work was found to be at a wartime pace. Hospital Administrator Nayatjyoti Goswami said the Haflong Covid ICU would add eleven beds.

Meanwhile, Emanuel Islam, an employee at the Chief Minister’s Diagnostic Center at Haflong Civil Hospital, lost his job after being caught stealing covid vaccines. Hospital Superintendent Dr Kalpana Kemprai said that on May 8, Emmanuel cleverly grabbed ten vials of vaccine.  At the same time, the matter came to the notice of the authorities and it was confirmed to be Emanuel after watching the CCTV footage. It is to be noted that Emanuel was an employee of HLL Limited.