Fight needs to be organized
The fight against Covid-19 is getting tougher with every passing day. Not only are the number of positive cases increasing in Jammu and Kashmir but the serious cases that the hospitals receive are carrying a high viral load and their illness seems to have got complicated from the earlier days when the positive patients had mild symptoms and recovered from their illness with ease.
Now that the situation is alarming, the authorities as well as the people have to fight this virus with much more devotion and grit. This means the fight has to be made multi pronged with the administration too pushing in with more efforts to help reduce the fatalities and provide a better response to Covid-19 management.
Notably, the administration on Thursday issued an order restricting the admission of patients in Srinagar hospitals to referral cases only. This in simple terms means that only those patients will be admitted in Srinagar hospitals who carry a referral from district health authorities.
But this has meant additional responsibility for the district health authorities because they will have to ensure availability of better healthcare facilities at the district level. The facilities have to be made available in terms of infrastructure and medicines as well.
Though this seems quite challenging, as the people here in Srinagar are already complaining about the lack of facilities in major Srinagar hospitals as well. Besides, the availability of medicines to fight the pandemic too has raised several questions.
The only drug that has helped critically ill patients to recover and fight the Coronavirus is Remdisvir, which unfortunately has been out of bounds for a common man. The drug primarily is very costly and secondly it is not available with ease.
Patients who have been prescribed this medicine have faced uphill task to lay their hands on the medicine and if at all it becomes available they have to cough up thousands to but it. This issue was even raised by Medico body (DAK), which also sought governments intervention to help make this drug available and that too at lower costs.
The availability of the drug at a lower cost is an issue that the government should immediately take into account. We are living in a pandemic situation with most of the people either witnessing job losses or recording slump in their business earnings. In such a scenario spending thousands on an anti viral drug is proving to be very difficult.
Here the authorities can jump in and provide a solution. We are hearing that Covid-19 vaccines that will be made available in UK and USA will be offered free for the residents of the two nations.
Even in capital city of Delhi the authorities have announced free plasma availability for Covid-19 patients, making it sure that people do not end up landing into trouble while arranging for the vital ingredients for Covid positive patients.
The same can be replicated in Jammu and Kashmir where authorities can offer some solace for the Covid-19 patients by helping to provide the needed medicines on subsidized rates. This will help the people to bear the costs of falling ill in times of financial strains and lockdowns.
