Medical Education and Research Minister, Punjab, O P Soni stressed on the need of early testing and in time hospitalization for symptomatic and comorbid patients to save the precious lives from COVID pandemic in the state. During the meeting with District Administration and Government Medical College and Rajindra Hospital authorities with Principal Secretary, Mr D K Tewari, Mr Soni said that delay in testing may cause problems for the infected patients, so we should be more careful to combat the pandemic. Divulging the details of daily testing in Government labs, he said that apart from three medical college labs, four more government labs had been made functional with the total capacity of 20000 tests per day. He disclosed that government labs have conducted over 10 lakh tests so far free of cost. Even, the state government is expanding Rs 2 Crore daily on testing to detect the infected people to make available them treatment in time.He said that all the three medical colleges are contributing a lot for the care of COVID positive patients by providing level-2 and level-3 treatment facilities. Staff of medical colleges and hospitals working day and night in this pandemic to save the precious lives of the patients, he further added.Mr Soni said that Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh closely monitors the arrangements being provided for testing and in-hospitalisation. Government Hospitals are curing the COVID patients free of cost, be it medicines, tests or food, he added.Seeking cooperation from media in combating rumors, he said that every one should contribute to make aware people of this politically motivated false propaganda as the sole aim of the state government is to provide better treatment to all the COVID patients.
In response to a question during a media interaction, Mr. O.P. Soni said that after the death of COVID patient, it is the responsibility of the concerned medical superintendent to ensure that his belongings reach the family safely and if there is any complaint in this regard, it can be forwarded to the concerned district deputy commissioner.Replying to another question, Mr. Soni said that the emergency services at Government Rajindra Hospital were continuing but only some surgeries which could have been postponed, were put off for some time. He said that patients at Rajindra Hospital are being fully taken care of as the patients are expressing gratitude to the doctors after getting discharged. Mr. Soni said that the civil and police administration including doctors and other health personnel were working tirelessly for the success of the Mission Fateh 24 hours a day but these efforts would be successful only if the people of Punjab would support it by getting them tested early. Replying to a query regarding Plasma Banks, he said that in Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot, as per the instructions of the Union Government, the plasma of recovered patients were being taken.On the issue of increase in fees in government medical colleges, Mr. Soni said that the fee cost of government colleges has only been increased while the additional fees of private medical colleges have been reduced to bring uniformity in them and the propaganda of the opponents is baseless.In an earlier meeting, Mr. O.P. Sony instructed the Principal Medical College and the Medical Superintendent to conduct a detailed analysis of every death caused by COVID, to which doctors said a high-level committee meets daily to analyze the each death and it has come to fore that in the first 48 hours of the deaths, the patients were rushed to the hospital in critical condition, that become the cause of death. On the occasion, Principal Secretary Medical Education and Research Mr. D.K. Tewari, Deputy Commissioner Kumar Amit, SSP Mr. Vikram Jeet Duggal, COVID Incharge Mrs. Surbhi Malik, Principal of Medical College Dr. Harjinder Singh, Medical Superintendent Paras Kumar Pandav and other senior doctors were also present.