The Delhi Medical Association (DMA) has slammed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for “issuing warning” and threatening the hospitals amid the Coronavirus crisis the national capital is currently facing with the sudden spurt in the COVID-19 cases.
The DMA also condemned the Delhi Police’s action to registered an FIR against the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on Saturday for violating the ICMR guidelines for tests of novel coronavirus following a complaint by the state government.
“Delhi Medical Association strongly condemns the way Delhi CM (chief minister) is warning the doctors and threatening the hospitals about COVID-19 patients’ admissions and tests,” the DMA said.
The association released a statement saying that its 15,000 members and all branches of the DMA strongly condemn such behaviour by the Delhi Government and the way Delhi Chief Minister is warning the doctors and threatening the hospitals.
“Doctors who are serving the people of Delhi tirelessly for the last two months in this pandemic crisis risking their lives feel insulted by the way they are being treated,” said the association.
It also added, “Hospitals are the backbone of healthcare and are serving the patients, Covid or non Covid. They are being penalized and the government instead of praising their efforts is issuing new dictates (‘farman’) daily. Sir Ganga Ram hospital and its doctors, who have saved lakhs of lives in the last decades, are being penalised and threatened. The FIR on Sir Ganga Ram Hospital is highly condemnable and demoralizing for the whole medical fraternity.”
The association has demanded a coordination committee of the DMA Medical Professionals with the Delhi government officials to look after the all health care facilities and proper management of corona crises and a nodal Officer for every one region or area who facilitates overall functioning of the Covid Care.
“Every hospital and nursing home giving Covid care should have a dedicated testing Lab Facilities,” it said, adding “smooth and timely transfer of severely sick patients to higher tertiary care Centre. It also demanded that in case of Covid death, a prompt and efficient system to transport and cremate the body as per guidelines should be made.”
Earlier on Saturday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had issued a stern warning to private hospitals on the alleged denial of admission to coronavirus patients and said that the Delhi government would deploy health officials at such hospitals to ensure availability of beds to each and every Covid-19 patient.
“Some hospitals are denying admission to COVID-19 patients. I am warning those who think they will be able to do black-marketing of beds using the influence of their protectors from other parties, you will not be spared,” the chief minister said at a press briefing on the Coronavirus situation in the national capital.
He had said the government had launched the ‘Delhi Corona’ app to stop black marketing of beds. “We thought of making the information about the number of beds and ventilators in hospitals transparent. But now, there is an uproar over it as if we committed a crime,” Kejriwal said.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain earlier on Friday said the issue was that some hospitals are “not updating” the data on the Delhi government’s coronavirus tracking application on time or “misrepresenting actual data” when patients call.
COVID-19 tally in the city has reached to 27654 and the number of deaths due to the disease jumped to 761.