Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 14
COVID-19 case-count in Nagaland is relatively low juxtaposed with the other more populous states and also smaller north-east states like Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.
But as the second wave sweeps through the north-east, a poorly managed state like Nagaland with its ramshackle government medical infrastructure is facing the consequences.
Dimapur district in particular, which is currently taking the brunt of the COVID-19 second wave in Nagaland, is displaying signs of what happened in Delhi and Mumbai.
As the COVID-19 Hospital is filled above and beyond the official 100-bed intake capacity, many have no choice but to isolate at home. On May 13 evening, there were 194 patients admitted with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.
One case on May 14 made the lack of hospital room all the more obvious as an elderly person, who was tested positive, was advised home isolation.
According to the patient’s son, his father, a diabetic patient, was taken for a routine health check up today to a nursing home. A precautionary COVID test returned a positive result and he was advised to report to the COVID Hospital.
At the COVID Hospital, the son said that his father was advised home isolation after checking the vital signs. “We were asked to isolate at home since they said that my father’s blood-oxygen level was normal and he was not displaying the known symptoms,” the son said. He added that they had no choice but to heed the advice and return home.
“Fortunately, my father has not displayed any of the known symptoms yet.” Still, he added that the thought of bed shortage for COVID patients is unsettling. As for him, he disclosed that he opted for an antigen test, as a precautionary measure, which returned negative.
There may be other isolated cases like this which go unreported and unnoticed but the signs are obvious enough.
To refresh public memory, including the state government’s, the situation at the COVID-19 Hospital Dimapur would not have been as worrying if only the project to upgrade the government district hospital was completed on time.
As reported by The Morung Express in March 2020, the new hospital complex, officially known as Upgradation of District Hospital Dimapur (from 150 to 200-bed), remains incomplete even after 7 years.
The project, worth Rs 23.37cr in total, was sanctioned by the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare in 2013 through the National Health Mission’s Forward Linkages Scheme.
Further, not much progress has been made even after the construction, which resumed sometime in mid-2020, after the shock of the COVID pandemic reminded the state government of the incomplete project that had consumed Rs 15.99 Cr as on February 2020, as per RTI replies from the Department of Health & Family Welfare.
Read the exclusive report about the incomplete project here https://morungexpress.com/covid-19-threat-and-incomplete-dimapur-dist-hospital
