Witnessing the overwhelming response across the State, more than 60,000 new drug-addict patients have been registered under de-addiction program in just one month during the lockdown.Giving more details, Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that keeping in view the increasing number of patients, the opening time of OOAT clinics has been fixed at 8 am. He said that on the directives of Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, special attention was being paid to all the key programs of the health department including drug de-addiction program so that patients suffering from chronicle and other serious diseases would not face any difficulty. He also appealed to the social workers and general public that to follow the instructions of the government at this critical time and reach out to the hospitals only when needed.Elaborating the importance of flu corners, he further said that flu corners have been established in government hospitals to take samples of suspected corona patients. All private hospitals in the state have been asked to refer the patients those have flu symptoms to government hospitals so as to prevent the spread of Corona virus as earliest. Free RT-PCR testing will be conducted of all patients with flu symptoms such as fever, cough, respiratory problem, pneumonia etc. at these flu corners.
The Health Minister said that to check the spread of Corona at the public level, the Health & Family Welfare department has issued the instructions to all the districts to ensure that not a single suspected patient of COVID-19 would be missed in screening campaign. He said that apart from the private hospitals, all the chemists have been directed to provide details of sale of medicines which can use for treatment of flu, cough & cold with the information of the buyer.The Health Minister said that the Punjab Government has also taken a public interest initiative to ensure uninterrupted health services to the people of the state in the wake of COVID-19 epidemic. The Punjab Government has launched Integrated Telemedicine Solution, e-Sanjivani-Online OPD Services (Doctor to Patient) developed by C-DAC Mohali. The initiative aims to provide maximum online OPD services to the people especially in rural areas. He said that it provides a platform for the people to connect with the network of specialist doctors through video conferencing.