Lucknow & other UP districts ramp up medical infrastructure to deal with COVID surge

Settled tight in the clutches of the coronavirus threat, the state of Uttar Pradesh has taken a slew of measure to raise a defence against the alarming surge of infection. The State Cabinet, Health Department and district bodies have launched a multi-thronged test, 'trace and treat system', to curb the rise of COVID-19. From increasing medical staff and monitoring committees to ramping up healthcare infrastructure and resources, UP has pulled up its proverbial socks to tackle the COVID surge.

Vaccination Drive to be intensified in Lucknow

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The Uttar Pradesh government has set up around 73,000 monitoring committees in the rural and urban areas of the state, to collect door-to-door details of COVID infected persons. These bodies are also tasked to create awareness for vaccination along with effective prevention of the pandemic. COVID-appropriate behaviour, such as social distancing, wearing of face covers/masks and hand hygiene is also being propagated by these committees.

The CM has laid emphasis on the importance of monitoring committees. "Keeping a regular check on the works of monitoring committees should be done in every district. Their activation is necessary to control the spread," he directed officials. Further, the cabinet has also launched a 'trace and treat system' to curb the infection rates. The purpose is to identify symptomatic people, then test them and provide proper treatment if the result is positive.

Lucknow has 110 monitoring committees

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As far as vaccination is concerned, the CM has further notified that the vaccination campaign should be intensified in Lucknow, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Agra, Gorakhpur, Meerut and Varanasi, which have a high virus load. Here also, the monitoring committees are aiding to clear misconceptions in people's mind about the COVID jab and encouraging the public to get vaccinated.

State capital Lucknow, has about 110 monitoring committees. These bodies have been formed by the LMC and the appointed officials are visiting people's homes in each ward daily, to gather health reports. The bodies are also engaged in identifying influenza-like symptoms of the people coming to Lucknow from other destinations.

On Tuesday, as many as 50 persons were inspected by the ward monitoring committees, out of which 45 people were found healthy and only 5 people were found to have mild symptoms such as cold, cough, fever.

Boosting the medical infrastructure

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About 106 doctors have been posted on COVID treatment duties to ease the overwhelming pressure on healthcare staff due to the humongous active caseload. Out of these new doctors, 18 were selected in the orthopaedics, 6 in TB and Chest, 19 in paediatrics, 5 in ophthalmology, 8 in ENT, 12 in gynaecology, 22 in general medicine, 1 in forensics, 1 in skin, 3 in radiotherapy, 5 in epidemiology, 5 as RHTC-cum-assistant teacher and 1 medical teacher in plastic surgery. As per reports, these doctors have been reporting on their assigned duties since Monday.

According to the Principal Secretary, Medical Education, the resource crunch has been addressed. He said that along with human resource, the number of beds in the hospitals is being further increased. Orders have also been issued to purchase additional oxygen cylinders to make them available to patients.

Adding to this, a government spokesperson informed that oxygen is being brought to Lucknow by train as well as by road and the situation was likely to ease in the next 24 hours. An oxygen tanker has been sent from Bokaro to Lucknow, via rail on the orders of the CM. Similarly, tankers also reached the city last night from Moradabad, by road.

Large scale manufacturing of ventilators in UP

A Noida-based company, Agva Health Care, has pitched in support to help the state government in overcoming the shortage of ventilators in the state. This company has started to manufacture ventilators at a large scale to help UP overcome the acute shortage caused due to the second wave of infection. At present, it is in the process of making 10,000 new ventilators.

Earlier, Agva Health Care had made 500 ventilators available to the state government during the first wave of coronavirus last year. There were about 36 districts in UP that did not even have a single ventilator bed, however, each of these have at least 5 such beds now.

- With inputs from IANS