The rural covid care centres have started function in all 19 Panchayats of hilly Drabshalla block of Kishtwar district.The credit goes to Block Development Officer (BDO) Drabshalla, Sobia Shad, who worked relentlessly to make these centres functional within 03 days.Besides this, she also did exemplary work in scaling up the vaccination drive for 45 yr old and above persons and spreading awareness about covid appropriate behaviour among PRIs & common masses to contain its spread in the block.Speaking about the facilities created under her supervision, the BDO said, "Drabshalla has 19 Panchayats and it was a challenging task for me as 04 of them have no road connectivity. But I am very happy that the efforts of the team RDD in Drabshalla have shown fruitful results.” Now the Covid care facilities have been established in every Panchayat to provide isolation facilities and treatment to the people locally." She expressed optimism that these Panchayat Covid care centres will definitely help in catering to rural people in case of any eventuality. She said, "People in these areas mostly don't have isolation facilities at home, so Panchayat level covid care centres are the most apt alternative". It was not easy to transport the requisite material to the centres having no road connectivity, but we managed with cooperation, coordination and supervision, she added.
"Each Panchayat Level covid centre has 5 beds, one oxygen concentrator, the medicines, testing facility, oximeters and safety equipment like PPE kits,” she said confidently.“We did mass testing in Bhatkoot Panchayat having no road connectivity. As many as 100 Rapid COVID-19 tests were conducted in one day and no one was found positive, besides this we trained ASHA workers, Panchayat members in Covid care, constituted surveillance team for mopping exercise, prepared list of 45 and above for vaccination and till date about 94 percent population above 45 has been vaccinated in the Block Drabshalla and vaccination of the rest is on,” she added.She further said that the District Administration and local PRIs played a pivotal role in establishing and functioning of the Panchayat Covid Care Centres, besides in educating and spreading awareness among rural masses about the importance of vaccination. She also thanked Tehsildar Drabshalla Arun Kumar and dedicated BLOs of the region and Deputy Commissioner Kishtwar, Ashok Sharma for his guidance. She said the most important part of Rural Covid centers is their proper functioning, maintenance in terms of hygiene, medicine availability, 24*7 adequate staff and other requirements. “We are doing our duty and covid management was a new part of it. But it has not only improved our work efficiency, but also given an opportunity to train and prepare ourselves for all situations,” she added