PUDUCHERRY: All COVID care centers of private medical colleges would be brought under the control of Puducherry government, said Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao.
This decision was taken after a meeting with the private medical colleges conducted on Monday evening in respect of securing beds in their institutions for COVID patients, where all the medical colleges have fallen in line to establish COVID care centers in their institutions. All available beds and other equipment including ventilators and monitors have been kept ready for the spurt in cases and the medical colleges will be under the control of the government, said the Health Minister.
The private medical colleges numbering seven in the UT were informed that July will be worse as new cases at an average of thirty per day are being reported every day. They were also asked to purchase the required equipment for which payment will be made as per the government of India rates, he said. All persons with mild COVID symptoms or asymptomatic will be sent to the private medical colleges from today,he added.
On request from MPs and MLAs, COVID testing is being done in rural areas using mobile Ambulance as it takes five hours for a person from Village to come to the COVID hospital and test himself. Several MLAs were on the ground and arranged everything by the time the Ambulance reached the village for COVID testing. Others should also follow the suit irrespective of party affiliation, he said adding that they should also create awareness on COVID guidelines for prevention among the people.
The government has decided to procure 5,000 more RT-PCR testing kits to enhance testing as part of improving the existing mechanism to contain COVID infections in the UT, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said . Besides thermal scanner has been installed in all Primary Health Centres.
Fresh Cases
Meanwhile, as many as 32 fresh cases of COVID-19 were reported taking the total number of cases to 1041.
Among them, 31new cases are in Puducherry and one in Mahe. While 20 are male and 12 female. Among them 25 patients are in the age group 18 to 60 years, five are below 18 years, and two above the age of 60.
Presently 517 persons are undergoing treatment, of which 479 are in Puducherry region (323 patients are being treated at the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Research Institute (IGMCRI) and 123 at JIPMER and 31 in COVID care centres ), eight in Karaikal GH and 14 in Yanam GH, and nine in Mahe GH, two cases are in Villupuram GH.
In all 517 patients have been discharged after recovery including 33 patients on Tuesday. So far 14 patients have died.
Till now 21382 samples have been tested, of which 19996 have been negative and the test results of 295 are awaited. A total of 498 samples have been tested of which 32 are positive, the infection rate is 6.4 percent.