Shore up health infra: PM to CMs

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, June 17

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Stressing the need to invest in building up health infrastructure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asked the Chief Ministers to encourage the use of telemedicine to shore up access to healthcare for those with other diseases while increase the testing to check the spread of Covid-19.

On the concluding day of his two-day interaction with the CMs, PM Modi focussed on issues related to health, including ramping up facilities for greater testing to prevent the virus spread while working to pull people out of the stigma born out of fear of the virus.

While a large number of quarantine and isolation centres were set up during the last two to three months, he said, the country would have to increase its speed so that patients did not face shortage of beds anywhere.

He suggested raising an army of young volunteers who can run assistance facilities effectively for the public. Noting that states with high downloads of AarogyaSetu App have shown positive results, the PM said more people must be encouraged to download it while cautioning that approaching monsoon season would add to pressure in dealing with challenges of health.

Stressing the importance of telemedicine, he said efforts should be made to ensure that everyone, be it the people in home quarantine or isolation, or those suffering from other diseases, got its benefit.

“There is also an emotional aspect of the fight against corona. We also have to find ways by which we can pull our citizens out of the stigma born out of the fear of the virus… If someone contracts coronavirus, he/she must not panic,” he said.

Priority, he said, should be to provide essential services and ensure the required facilities to corona warriors, such as our doctors and other healthcare workers. “It is the responsibility of all of us, the entire nation, to look after them at every level.”

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