BJP slams government over lack of temporary medical centres in villages
BHUBANESWAR: Amid surge in positive cases in rural areas, the BJP on Sunday slammed the State government for not allowing the district administrations to open temporary medical centres (TMCs) in villages as was done last year. Attributing the steep rise in cases in rural areas to absence of facilities for isolating migrant workers who returned to their villages before the lockdown, State BJP general secretary Lekhashri Samantsinghar said the State government is reluctant to open TMCs in panchayats despite repeated appeals.
Even as the situation in villages is worsening, the government has no authentic data of positive patients due to lack of testing and tracking of cases. Samantsinghar said the number of positive cases in the State is hovering over 10,000 when just 40,000 tests are being conducted daily. The number of positive cases will be much higher if more tests are conducted.
She said the State government had allocated Rs 5 lakh to each of the 6,798 gram panchayats across the State to set up TMCs to quarantine people coming to Odisha from other states and to accommodate those showing symptoms of the disease. The total cost came to around Rs 340 crore and the funds were sanctioned from grants of 14th Finance Commission.
The State government had set up 16,815 TMCs and arranged 7,62,345 beds at Covid health centres in rural areas last year. “What happened to the beds and other articles purchased for the TMCs? Since the government is silent, we have every reason to believe that the materials purchased for the temporary Covid care homes were distributed among BJD workers,” Samantsinghar alleged.
Criticising the State government for advising infected people in villages to stay in self isolation, the BJP leader said the managers of the Covid-19 pandemic are ignorant about the conditions prevailing in rural areas. She urged the government to direct the district administrations to open the TMCs without further delay to save precious lives.
Stating that the health sector in the State is crumbling, Samantsinghar said critical Covid patients from districts are scrambling for beds in hospitals in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar but there are none available either in private or government facilities.