Since last week, India has emerged as the global centre for CVID19. Every day it is adding more than three lakh positive cases to its kitty with health infrastructure crumbling.
The pictures and visuals appearing in media from hospitals, cremation grounds and graveyards are distressing. People are feeling helpless and the government action is far from the need at this point of time.
The international media is claiming that the death count in India is under count due to spiral in COVID19 cases. India has literally been caught on the wrong foot though it managed well in the first wave of COID19 during last year.
With the massive oxygen shortage that is desperately needed by the COVID19 patients, it exposes how the time was wasted by the regime in Delhi till now. So many countries in the world have announced aid to India to fight the battle against COVID pandemic.
Rather from many countries, the aid has already started arriving but the situation is still grim and there is a massive surge in COVID positive cases. The most important thing that India needs this time is oxygen since the second wave is so cruel that it infects the lungs in the first place and majority of those patients die for want of oxygen.
Jammu and Kashmir, fortunately is still managing the situation well and the cases are not rising the way like in Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and other states. The officials are claiming that it is proactive and ready to meet any eventuality if it arises at any point of time.
Various initiatives have been taken and bed capacities in the hospitals have been increased. Many other buildings and other places have also been converted into COVD19 hospitals. But what is more important to beat the second wave of COVID19 is uninterrupted oxygen supply to hospitals.
Even though the officials claim that Jammu and Kashmir has no shortage of oxygen and can be adequately supplied to the hospitals as per their need, however, the media reports in the last few days are disturbing. Most of the hospitals in the south Kashmir region still have oxygen plants defunct.
Similarly, the Bandipora oxygen plants may take a week or more to become operational. Given the non functioning of these oxygen plants, the patients referrals from such districts to tertiary care hospitals have increased. If there had been the supply of oxygen available to these hospitals, referrals would have been considerably low.
This is not only putting the lives of patients at risk, however, unnecessary burden is being put on tertiary care hospitals. Thus, the quality of treatment will compromise and for that doctors cannot be blamed. If the oxygen plants are not operational yet, the blame shall be put on the administration and Directorate of Health Services.
Ironically, it is the doctor facing the wrath of annoyed attendants. It is the high time that no laxity shall be observed by administration and speed up its work to make all oxygen plants operational in UT. The time is really running out.
