BHUBANESWAR/CUTTACK: In its efforts to ensure critical healthcare to the survivors of the tragic train accident at Bahanaga, the Centre has mobilised doctors and critical medical equipment from New Delhi to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya who has been assigned the job by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that injured passengers undergoing treatment in different hospitals of Odisha are provided best of the treatment took stock of the situation in AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, Capital Hospital and SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack.
“More than 1,000 people are injured in this terrible accident and their treatment is underway. Over 100 patients need critical care and some of them need immediate surgery. Expert doctors from AIIMS, Delhi, Lady Harding Hospital and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital along with modern equipment and medicines have reached here in a special Airforce plane. We had detailed discussion and a working plan has also been prepared,” Mandaviya told media persons after visiting AIIMS hospital.
The Union Health minister told this paper that another team of experts doctors will arrive here from Raipur on Monday and will be deputed wherever they are needed. “We are assessing the situation and monitoring the condition of the critically injured persons undergoing treatment at different hospitals of Balasore, Bhadrak, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. It has been planned to mobilise members of the expert team of doctors to different hospitals as per the requirement to provide special treatment so that lives of as many patients can be saved,” he said. After visiting AIIMS, Mandaviya went to Capital Hospital and then SCB MCH, Cuttack to review the situation there. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan accompanied him.
The prime minister during his visit to the accident spot at Bahanaga on Saturday had talked to Mandaviya and asked him to send a team of doctors with critical equipment and medicines for augmenting treatment of patients in the state. With over 150 bodies of the Bahanaga train accident remaining unidentified and without claimant for some of the deceased, the Centre has requested the state government to keep the bodies for a few days to enable their families to perform their last rights.
Responding to a query if more time will be allowed to the families and relatives of the deceased to perform last rights, Mandavaiya told reporters the Railway minister has requested the state government to make special arrangement for keeping the corpses in morgue for some more time. It is up to the state government to take a decision.Earlier on the day, Karnataka’s Labour Minister Santosh S Lad visited victims of his state undergoing treatment at SCB.