Arunachal's lone medical college hospital to treat all COVID-19 patients

Itanagar - The Arunachal Pradesh government on Thursday decided that the state''s lone medical college and hospital will deal with all coronavirus related cases and will not treat any other disease from now on.

The decision that only the Tomo Riba Institute of Health & Medical Science will treat coronavirus cases was taken at a meeting of the State Task Force on COVID-19 chaired by Chief Minister Pema Khandu.

The chief minister suggested that other hospitals in the state capital like the Rama Krishna Mission Hospital will take over the responsibility to take care of other health issues of the people.

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"We have to be well prepared for any kind of mass outbreak of the disease, which has no cure yet and put all our resources to tackle any kind of emergency. Therefore, it is necessary for us to have a separate hospital with adequate facilities to deal with the outbreak," Khandu asserted.

Pointing out that it is encouraging that not a single COVID-19 case has been detected in the state yet, he cautioned against complacency.

Expressing concern over the reported supply of poor quality Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to doctors and health workers, the chief minister said the supplied PPEs have been withdrawn and the government has ordered fresh procurement.

"We will not compromise with the safety of our frontline workers and legal action has been initiated against the defaulters," he said.

Khandu stressed that all PPE consignments must be vetted by a technical team before disbursement to health workers.

The state government also approved sanction of Rs 1,000 aid to all BPL card holders of the state as people are not getting jobs during the lockdown period.

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