Hyderabad: Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday expressed satisfaction over decline of Covid positive cases in Telangana even as state finance minister T Harish Rao placed a long quotation for oxygen, vaccines and essential medicines.
The Union Health Minister held a video conference with ministers of several states in which Harish took part on the directions of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. According to a CMO press release, the finance minister explained several steps taken by the Chief Minister to enhance healthcare with a great foresight after the first wave. The number of beds went up from 18,232 to 53,775, oxygen beds from 9,213 to 20,738 and ICU beds from 264 to 11,274, he said.
Harish informed the Health Minister of launching a massive door-to-door Covid survey by Anganwadi and Asha workers to identify people with symptoms and provide medical kit free of cost. So far, 60 lakh households had been covered under this survey and lakhs of people could avoid hospitalisation and their lives were saved thanks to the state initiative, the minister pointed out.
The finance minister brought to the notice of Dr Harsh Vardhan about the influx of thousands of Covid patients from the neighbouring states leading to shortage of oxygen and essential medicines in the state. The Centre should allocate oxygen and Remdesivir and other essential drugs based on the influx of patients from outside instead of pro-rata population basis, he said.
The minister sought enhanced allocation of oxygen from 450 MT to 600 MT and supply the same from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra instead of far-off Odisha to save turnaround time. The Remdesivir allocation should be increased to 20,000 per day, he said, adding that two lakh testing kits also should be made available to the state every day. The state also needed 1.29 crore vaccines out of which 13 lakh should be arranged immediately, he said.
