Don’t cover up doctors’ deaths: Stalin

Chennai: DMK President M K Stalin urged the government not to belittle the sacrifice of 47 doctors in the fight against Covid-19 by covering up the deaths but to announce it openly and pay the Rs 50 lakh relief to their families, besides providing a family member a job in the government.

The Tamil Nadu branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had announced that 32 doctors succumbed to Coronavirus infection and 15 others died with symptoms of the disease, Stalin said in a statement on Sunday.

Even IMA’s vice president, G Kothandaraman, a doctor based in Rajapalayam died after a 35-day battle with the disease, Stalin said.

Recalling the Health Minister C Vijaybaskar denying an earlier report that 43 doctors had died, Stalin urged him not to cover it up any more.

He said the Health Minister, in the presence of his Health Secretary, had told the media that those reports on doctors’ death were baseless and rumours.