Leverage all resources to curb COVID spread in distt Kupwara: Choudhary Ramzan to admin

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference on Wednesday urged the district administration to rise up to the exigencies thrown by the spike of COVID-19 infections and ensure availability of all critical COVID-19 care drugs, Oxygen beds, Vaccines and testing kits across all health facilities in District Kupwara.
While expressing concern over the problems faced by the people in the frontier district of Kupwara, Party’s Senior Leader and Former legislator Choudhary Muhammad Ramzan demanded flip in the efforts and response underway by the district administration to tackle with the crises like situation.
Choudhary, who has been receiving SOS calls from across the district urged the district administration to give boost to the availability of critical care gadgets, medicines, vaccines and Testing kits at district hospital Kupwara, and other seven sub-district hospitals, primary health care PHC/MMC centers, New type PHCs, District TB centers, Urban health centers and mobile medical aid centers across the district.
“The need of the hour calls for a multi-step plan to curb COVID-19 spread. The strategy should include increasing testing at an exponential rate with a higher share of RT PCR test. The screening tool should be made thickly available across the district. Effective isolation highly equipped with all critical care machines also needs to be upgraded to cater to the increased patient flow, such facilities could be set up in various government buildings. The measure will ease out burden from government hospitals,” he said adding “In addition to this special attention should be paid to promote proper behavior across the district with the help of effective community engagement and utilization of print, electronic, and social media platforms. Public awareness is a must, it has to be at the center of the government’s retort against the COVID-19 sprawl,” he said.
Emphasizing on the targeted approach of vaccination, he said the universalization of vaccination could be achieved by involving community leaders. “People have reservations about the vaccination. The hesitancy has to be addressed on priority basis, failing which the anticipated goal of the administration would not be achieved. Rushing mobile vans across the district particularly the uppers reaches and border areas will help in achieving the target,” he added.
Expressing concern over the glitches, he said the administration is duty bound to ensure availability of adequate staff and vaccines including testing kits at all health centers, which he said have unfortunately been left unattended to. “The local staff is doing a good job; but it is the short fall of required kits, critical drugs and other essentials medicines, which is hampering the treatment, testing as well as vaccination drive. The morale of our COVID warriors is high in these difficult times,” he said.
Welcoming the establishment of an oxygen producing plant at the sub-district hospital in Kupwara, he said the provision should live up to the hype and prove beneficial to the ever increasing needs of people. He also impressed upon the people to abide by the government advisories and COVID-19 protocol religiously. He expressed gratitude to the frontline workers and district administration for their efforts, urging them to bump up their efforts in order to curb the menace.