WB dengue: BJP writes to Nadda seeking central intervention

Kolkata: BJP West Bengal president Dilip Ghosh has written to Union Health Minister J P Nadda seeking his intervention to tackle the states dengue situation which, he said, has become an epidemic.

In a letter to Nadda, Ghosh alleged that hospitals and health centres of the state are inadequately equipped to treat patients and are sending them home without meaningful treatment.

"Under such precarious situation where common people are victims and state government is busy subverting the facts, I am compelled to request you to kindly intervene in this dengue epidemic situation in West Bengal immediately and please take necessary steps to provide relief to the people," he said in the letter.

The BJP leader also accused the Mamata Banerjee government of discreetly instructing the hospitals not to write dengue in prescriptions or in death certificates and has created fear psychosis among doctors.

"The CM, who is also the health minister, has declined to accept that there is any epidemic of dengue in Bengal and said it is a conspiracy of the opposition political parties," Ghosh said.

Alleging that there is a huge shortage of dengue test kits in state-run hospitals, he wrote to the union minister that the number of dengue deaths in the state were much more than the state governments claim of 18.

The number of dengue cases have crossed 50,000 while the health department is saying it is only 18,000, he claimed in the letter written on Thursday, a copy of which was made available to the media today.

When contacted, Ghosh told PTI that the state government is unwilling to solve the situation and that is why it is trying to suppress facts.

"Lives of the common people hold no value to this government. The Mamata Banerjee government has lost the trust of the people," he said.