September 17, 2020
Santanu Sen speaks on measures taken by Bengal to combat COVID-19
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Thank you for allowing me to speak on the Bill, Sir.
Sir, I think if we want to fight COVID-19 in the true sense then our Central government should adopt the noble endeavours of the State governments.
Let me cite certain examples of our State government.
Number one: West Bengal is the only state in our country where the entire healthcare delivery system is absolutely free of cost. We have started the Safe Home project wherein mild symptomatic or asymptomatic patients, who cannot stay in their own homes due to constraints, can stay in these places. Till date we have built 200 Safe Homes, accommodating 11,507 beds.
Then there is the COVID protocol monitoring team, which looks after the infrastructure of the COVID-19 hospitals and quarantine centres. A COVID-19 patient management system has been started by Mamata Banerjee. This system enables family members to know about the status of patients who are admitted in hospitals. Using this information, it is possible to know whether a patient’s condition is serious or not, and if serious, the COVID-19 rapid response team can be informed. The rapid response team then runs to attend to that serious patient. In these ways, in our state of Bengal, the death rate is decreasing significantly.
There is a regular death analysis being carried on. We are working on the comorbid factors. Through the community comorbidity study, we are identifying the patients who are at risk. We are conducting testing at the doorsteps. Regular webinars are hosted to educate the rural doctors. Through the system of a COVID care network, COVID-19 survivors are helping to take care of COVID-19 patients, and give support to the patients’ family members. We have a global advisory board under the leadership of Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee.
Sir, as you know, in the coming days, plasma therapy is going to be one of the most important tools to fight COVID-19. We have already created plasma banks. Our health regulatory commission has helped to put a cap on the bills given by private hospitals for treating COVID patients. Many people in the country are facing the problem of over-billing, which is being done by a few private hospitals.
My suggestion to the Centre is to incorporate the private doctors, in addition to the doctors in public hospitals, in the health insurance scheme for health workers fighting the pandemic because they are getting affected more; the case fatality rate among private doctors getting affected is more than 18 per cent.
The Indian Medical Association demands that all the 389 doctors who have died fighting COVID-9 should be given veteran status, at least one person from each of the families should be given a job. Also, it is to be noted that only 193 of the 573 healthcare workers who died got health insurance because of procedural delays. Therefore, the insurance process should be simplified.
In the month of June, in the bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan in the Supreme Court, in a case launched by Dr Arushi Jain, it was alleged that the Bengal Health Department had told doctors in writing to take their own responsibility as far as PPEs are concerned. Sir, this is very unfortunate.
The ICMR should be given the liberty to declare that community spread is taking place because it has already been observed.
Sir, we are having a question in our minds, that the rapid antibody test kits which were bought from China were … <interrupted by Chair>
