CHANDIGARH: To effectively tackle the much-anticipated third Covid wave, Punjab chief secretary, Vini Mahajan ordered to immediately inoculate all the remaining healthcare workers and their families.
Mahajan also laid stress on permanent and need-based improvement in the existing healthcare facilities in the state.
Chairing a high-level meeting to review the preparedness of all four government medical colleges in the state, the chief secretary said the health facilities have been further ramped up by up to 25 % at each medical college, with a total of more than 1,430 level-II beds, over 700 level-III beds, including 262 paediatrics beds to effectively combat the possible surge in the deadly virus.
She said additional equipment worth over Rs 20 crore was being purchased for all four medical colleges in the state to meet the future demand.
Lauding the officials of the health and medical education departments for putting best efforts during these difficult times, the chief secretary asked both the departments to further upgrade and augment tertiary care facilities, especially those pertaining to children, fungal infection, oxygen supplies, manpower requirements, medicine stocks, other consumables and testing facilities before the state faces the onslaught of the third virus wave.
She directed to put in place adequate medical oxygen generation facilities at the medical colleges so that the oxygen concentrators can be shifted from there to other field hospitals.
Mahajan also asked to prioritise enhancement of specialist doctors through ongoing recruitments, which she desired to be completed within the next few weeks.
During the meeting need for biomedical engineering services division was discussed and for maintenance of medical equipment a stringent policy is being formulated.
The ongoing work to install medical oxygen plants and requisite electricity supply was also reviewed in detail for each healthcare institution.
Besides, various inter-departmental coordination issues were also ironed out at the meeting for expediting the infrastructure enhancement and recruitments.