March 11, 2020
Derek O’Brien speaks on ways to combat coronavirus
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sir, the last time the Health Minister made a statement on this subject, we all sat here and made suggestions from the opposition and the House ran. Today on this serious subject, the Videsh Mantri made a statement and we sat here as the opposition, heard him, and now we are giving suggestions. So I hope the Foreign Minister is also getting a message as to who his friends are.
There are two suggestions. It would be fair if you could pass these on to your Cabinet Health colleague because he is not here.
The first one is, to not create panic in any communication which we do. The second one is, to look at what some of the State Governments have done in the last seven to eight days, while they have been disrupting Parliament.
I will state two suggestions, based on what a State Government, like mine in Bengal, implemented and which have worked very well. I want to share those suggestions.
One is, set up isolation wards in all Government hospitals. It has been done as a precautionary measure in Bengal and has worked very very well. Now the private hospitals too have also adopted that. The second one is, do a mass campaign on how to properly wash your hands and for how long. The Chief Minister of Bengal herself shot a video, sitting in her office and that has gone viral, so more and more people are getting to know about what to do and what not to do.
Thank you, Sir.
