ITANAGAR, Jul 19: The All Nyishi Youth Association (ANYA) has expressed displeasure over the handling of the Covid-19 crisis and said the recent spike in Covid-19 cases in the state was due to management loopholes and mishandling of the situation.
The association said the state government “utterly failed to manage the situation,” adding that if the government had pulled up its socks in time, the situation could not have gone so bad.
It said the state government could have developed separate Covid-19 hospitals and separate accommodation facilities for the doctors and other frontline workers and stockpiled sufficient PPE in the four months after the PM had announced the first nationwide lockdown on 24 March to effectively deal with the pandemic.
“Four months is enough time to augment and strengthen the basic emergency health facilities to deal with the situation. How many designated/dedicated or makeshift Covid-19 hospitals have been developed so far to tackle the rising cases?” the association questioned.
It demanded a white paper from the state government on the fund received and spent, and also the details regarding Covid-19 management in the state.
The association attributed the recent spike in cases to “loopholes in the management and mishandling of the situation,” along with alleged “compromised monitoring system.”
It strongly opposed the conversion of the TRIHMS into a Covid-19 hospital by suspending the OPD services.
“This decision is a myopic one and ill-conceived which deprived the normal patients who need routine medical attention and services,” it said.
The association questioned the government as to why no separate Covid-19 hospital [even a makeshift one] or a separate “dedicated Covid-19 home” has been developed and arranged till date to accommodate the doctors and frontline workers who are rendering services to Covid-19 cases.
Stating that the frontline workers are currently commuting from their homes to attend Covid-19 duty, “which is against the WHO SOPs/guidelines,” the association strongly urged the state government to immediately provide them with “separate Covid-19 duty homes.”
The association also accused the health minister of lacking knowledge about Covid-19 and handling the situation in a highly unprofessional manner.
It said that on 4 May, a decision was taken to reduce the quarantine period from 14 days to three days and later on to five days, which it said was a wrong decision.
“Due to this faulty decision, many returnees were allowed to stay only three days in the quarantine centres instead of the mandatory 14 days. The root cause of community transmission is due to this ill-conceived and myopic decision,” it said.
“It would have been worth if a systematic SOPs had been enforced on the returnees without any leniency and deviation,” it said, adding that “many of the returnees were allowed to let loose or ostensibly given permission for self-home quarantine.”
Further, many such returnees, who had undergone self-home quarantine, were never monitored properly, it said, claiming that many of the returnees did not complete their 14 days’ mandatory home quarantine and freely mingled with other people.
The ANYA demanded that the government increase the testing capacity to 10,000 per day, besides expediting contact tracing and proper treatment of the patients to stop further spread of the virus.
The association demanded making PPE and medicines available to treat Covid-19 patients, and circulating information regarding the latest Covid-19 SOPs and guidelines.
It also said that there is a need to improve the dietary provisions at the quarantine centres.
The association claimed that enough financial assistance has been received from the central government and citizens’ generous contributions towards the chief minister’s relief fund to deal with Covid-19.
“It is imperative that the welfare and pro-people government must come out clean on this issue to ensure the accountability and transparency before the people of the state,” the release added.
