Coronavirus: 40 'Chinese' chairs dumped near IGMC Shimla; doctors panic

Kuldeep Chauhan
Tribune News Service
Shimla, March 24

Forty chairs, which were allegedly manufactured in China, were dumped in the lobby of the Government Dental College near the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) in Shimla on Tuesday, leading to panic among doctors amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The consignment made its way through the sealed borders in Chandigarh and Himachal and was delivered by three persons in the truck.

“These are Chinese chairs and are not even sanitized and were straightway dumped in the lobby today when the entire state is under lockdown,” said a doctor.

“We are scared to enter the gate of the dental college now as these might be infected. How come chairs’ consignment from China made its way from sealed barriers at Parwanoo and Shoghi and was delivered in the college without following a proper quarantine procedure,” a  medical student told The Tribune.

“The chairs are not an essential commodity covered under ESMA. Even then the truck was allowed in the campus and nobody knows how these Chinese chairs were allowed here and how they came from China,” said another doctor.

Dental college principal Dr Ashu Gupta said he was examining the matter.

Gupta said the chairs were ordered on March 2, for the dental college, and were dispatched from Chandigarh.

“These are not Chinese chairs and were sanitized in Chandigarh and we have sanitized them here and kept them in a room where nobody goes,” he said.

We will follow the proper procedure before installing them, he added.