Swasthya Ingit: State to introduce tele-meds to combat prevailing crisis

Kolkata: State Health department has started training doctors in the rural health centres at the block level and also in sub-divisions on how to handle the situation in the wake of a rising number of viral infected cases. The department has also planned to introduce tele-medicine through Swasthya Ingit portal that had emerged to be extremely handy for the government to meet pandemic challenges.

Senior health officials are going to utilise the same platform so that city doctors are able to provide online consultations to patients in the far-flung areas. The main purpose of the move is to check unnecessary referrals of children to the city hospitals. The Health department has already started training the doctors from the primary health centres at the block level. It has come to light that doctors in the village health centres are referring children to district and city hospitals when they can easily treat the patients there. This has been happening due to a palpable panic.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday urged all the district hospitals not to transfer patients to the city as many of them are dying during long transits as they are suffering from malnutrition and are underweight.

Meanwhile, three more children died in the city following a fever. One child was from Barasat while the second one was from Gobardanga in North 24-Parganas. The third child was from South 24-Parganas’ Canning. They were admitted to BC Roy Hospital with viral infection.

The state government on Thursday added that around 5,213 children have been infected with the seasonal virus so far out of which only 12 cases were of Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI). Out of these, only two adenovirus deaths have been reported so far in the state.

The Chief Minister on Thursday held a meeting with the Chief Secretary and the Health Secretary giving instructions to contain the viral infection.