Karnataka to rope in final year MBBS, Nursing students, dentists, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Ayush Practitioners for COVID-19 duty

Karnataka: With four lakh active COVID-19 cases in Karnataka, the State government drew a detailed action plan to combat the pandemic on Saturday. The action plan includes roping in final year MBBS, Nursing, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Ayush doctors, dentists and hospital management for COVID-19 duty.

With the government finding it difficult to handle the pandemic following crumbling State health infrastructure and shortage of medical personnel, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Saturday chaired a meeting with heads of top corporate hospitals in Bengaluru and decided to take services of final-year students of MBBS, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, AYUSH, dental, and hospital management courses for treating COVID-19 patients.

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Later, the Chief Minister posted a series of tweets on his Twitter handle.

"Held detailed discussion with the management of private hospitals to expand the availability of beds and optimise the existing resources. Oxygen beds will be set up at step-down hospitals using portable oxygen concentrators and centralised oxygen beds will be converted into ICU beds," Yediyurappa tweeted.

His office issued a statement detailing the measures taken by the government.

"To overcome the shortage of 'medical human resource', the government has decided to rope in final year medical and nursing students for the COVID duty and give them grace marks. Their final year exam will be postponed and they will be given incentives," a statement read.

Further, it was decided to enrol doctors with the Karnataka Medical Council who have completed their courses in foreign countries and put them on COVID duty.

The government doctors with less workload would be identified and assigned for COVID duty, the statement read. It has also been decided to convert hotels as step-down hospitals with oxygenated beds and convert the existing oxygenated beds into ICU beds, reports PTI.

Converting medical college hostels into oxygenated beds and giving financial aid to the private medical colleges to set up oxygen generation plants were part of the action plan. Patients would be triaged to minimise the number of patients in the hospitals and those who are asymptomatic would be asked to isolate at home where they would be given telemedicine.

To check and control a third wave of the pandemic, the meeting decided to constitute an expert committee to provide suggestions to the government.

Other decisions taken at the meeting included conducting audit of Remdesivir, speeding up of vaccinations, increasing incentives to doctors, and meeting expenses by the government in case of doctors involved in treating COVID-19 patients, reports The Hindu

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi had advised the Chief Ministers in his recent video conference, an audit of oxygen and Remdesivir injection would prevent their misuse. The government also decided to gear up the third wave of COVID-19 by forming a panel of experts and speeding up the vaccination drive.

"An expert group will be constituted to advise the government on prevention and mitigation of possible third and future waves of infection. The pandemic is an unprecedented challenge to humanity and we have to defeat it together with confidence, compassion and collaboration," Yediyurappa tweeted.

These measures were taken as the State has started logging around 40,000 to 48,000 cases daily with Bengaluru seeing over 50 per cent of the daily caseloads and fatalities.

Already, the government has appointed a senior IPS officer to arrange 4,000 ICU beds in the city with 500 beds in each of the eight municipal zones.

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