DIMAPUR, APRIL 26 (MExN): The Phom Peoples’ Council (PPC) and the Phom Student’s Conference (PSC) has issued an open letter to the Nagaland Chief Minister stating that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to “overwhelm” Longleng district.
A press release from the PPC Vice President, Tenchem Phom and PSC President, A Mane Phom said” “faced with a looming surge of COVID-19 cases in India, the government recently urged the district hospitals to begin admissions and to make the respective district hospital as COVID-19 hospital across the state to conduct Coronavirus tests.”
They added that the district administration along with the concerned department in the district had written to the Chief Secretary and department concerned respectively.”
However, the PPC and PSC said that the “lone hospital is yet to have an anaesthesiologist.” “The sorry state of affair is that where the course to be an anaesthesiologist, one has to undergo for three years of specialization studies but the department has called for the practitioner from Longleng hospital for a training of two days,” they claimed.
Citing an “abysmal condition at the district hospital,” the organisations expressed worry as to what would happen if the district registers a case of COVID-19. It also informed that the hospital has only one portable ventilator.
“As per the government guidelines there shouldn’t be any transfer of positive cases from one place to the other but to be treated at the COVID-19 hospital at the respective district,” they pointed out.
The organisations however said this “doesn’t seem like a reality at COVID-19 hospital, Longleng without an anaesthesiologist, sufficient ventilatorsand no fully established ICU apart from insufficient medical equipment to treat the patients.”
The PPC and the PSC meanwhile appreciated the district administration and all the front liners, the medical department in particular for the preparedness being carried out with a little resource that is available to tackle this pandemic.
The two organisations asked the government to provide “basic necessary human resources along with the equipment in a day or two.” “Failing to do so the two apex bodies will take its own course of action and the state government is to be held responsible for any untoward incident that arises in our district,” they cautioned.
