If This Is The State Of Affairs, We Are Leading People Of Uttar Pradesh Towards Third Wave Of Covid-19: Allahabad High Court
Expressing its dissatisfaction at the steps taken by the UP Government to test the rural population for Covid-19 and for enhancing the medical and health infrastructure in remote areas, the Allahabad High Court on Monday observed that citizens of UP are being led towards the third wave of pandemic. "If this is the state of affairs of five districts, one can guess where we are...
Expressing its dissatisfaction at the steps taken by the UP Government to test the rural population for Covid-19 and for enhancing the medical and health infrastructure in remote areas, the Allahabad High Court on Monday observed that citizens of UP are being led towards the third wave of pandemic.
"If this is the state of affairs of five districts, one can guess where we are leading people of this State to i.e. third wave of the pandemic," a Division Bench of Justices Siddhartha Varma and Ajit Kumar said.
It noted that the health infrastructure is absolutely insufficient in city areas to meet the requirement of city population and the rural areas the Community Health Centres are virtually lacking in respect of life saving gadgets. In most of the districts, the Level-3 hospital facilities are not there.
Lack of medical infrastructure
To demonstrate this aspect, the Bench took the example of Bijnor district as a test case to assess the overall health care system in smaller cities and rural areas of the State.
In Bijnor, the Court noted, there is no level-3 hospital despite a population of over 1 lakh residing there. The three Government Hospitals have only 150 beds, whereas, the total of number if BIPAP machines is 5 and High Flow Nasal Cannula is only 2.
"Thus, these important life saving devices in these days of pandemic where lungs with covid involvement are resulting in serious breathing problem, are very negligible in number," the Bench opined.
It further noted that there is no description as to what is the capacity of oxygen cylinders and whether in CHC there are trained hands to operate these oxygen cylinders and concentrators. The District Magistrate informed the Court that these facilities were available since the first wave of Pandemic had hit the State.
"Meaning thereby, there has been no further increase in supply of life saving gadgets to district Bijnor since last one year and thus the situation has not improved at all in terms of health care in district Bijnor. These facts therefore, are quite opposed to the Government's claim," the Bench remarked.
Lack of Covid-testing
So far as Covid-testing is concerned, the Court was informed that RTPCR and Antigen testing is being done in 60:40 ratio.
Expressing unhappiness over this figure, the Bench said,
"If we fail to identify a Covid infected person at the earliest, we are definitely inviting a third wave.
The manner in which the pandemic has hit the rural areas of the State, the district administration is required to have a robust way of conducting tests… For a rural population of 32 lacs, as is the case of district Bijnor, every day 4 to 5 thousand tests should be conducted and all the tests should be through RTPCR."
It added,
"If we have to test 30% of the population i.e. almost 10 lacs in the rural areas of district Bijnor within three month's time, then we will have to conduct 10000 tests per day, but from the statement made by the District Magistrate we do not see any such robust testing in near future in district Bijnor and condition in other four districts are also same.
If this is the state of affairs of five districts, one can guess where we are leading people of this State to i.e. third wave of the pandemic."
The Court has now directed the State Government to immediately improve and increase the testing methods of the rural population and the population of small cities and towns and also provide sufficient health care infrastructure.
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