Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], April 4 : On the lines of the measures announced for health workers by the Centre, the Punjab government on Saturday announced special health insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh each for the police personnel and station workers in the frontline of the fight against COVID-19.
As an emergency measure to combat COVID-19, the Punjab Cabinet led by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh also authorised the procurement committee headed by ACS Vini Mahajan to do quick price discovery for all purchases related to COVID-19 management and containment, and make purchases on urgent basis. The committee has been authorised to make spot purchases and exigency procurements, bypassing normal procedures, in exercise of emergency powers under the National Disaster Management Act, 2005, read a statement.
The Cabinet also allowed the procurement committee to procure essential and emergent medical items at prevalent market prices. Captain Amarinder Singh directed that no bureaucratic hassles should be allowed to come in the way of any urgent purchases that may be needed.
Taking serious note of shutdown of operations by several private hospitals, the Cabinet decided on strict action against such hospitals, with the Chief Minister suggesting that the health department should cancel the licences of hospitals refusing to treat COVID-19 patients. Terming it a cowardly act, the Chief Minister said they cannot go into hiding at such a critical time.
The Council of Ministers, which met through video coferencing to review the current situation in the state, decided that the arrangements to manage COVID-19 patients should be scaled up gradually to cater to larger number of patients, keeping in view - harvesting and procurement of wheat; rising trend in the country and state as well as apprehensions of community spread; and prevalence of an unknown and unprecedented pandemic, the statement added.
It was also decided that contingency plan should be prepared with alternative locations, equipment, and officers to deal with any emergent situation whereby any of the existing arrangements fail or collapse.
The Health Department earlier informed the Cabinet that once the rapid testing kits and the final guidelines come in from the Government of India, rapid tests will begin in the state to speed up the identification of positive cases. The rapid testing will be done for symptomatic and asymptomatic cases at all the hot spots, while symptomatic cases will be similarly tested in the non-hot spot areas. The department has already started community testing in hot spots, the Cabinet was further informed.
Contact tracing of the Tablighi Jamaat returnees was being done on an aggressive scale and 192 persons from the list of 255 received by the state had already been tested and isolated, the Health Department further disclosed.
In addition, tracking was being done for all the foreign returned, as well as high-risk categories such as healthcare professionals, police etc.
So far, contact tracing had been done for 1600 , including 846 high-risk personnel and of them, 34 had tested positive.
Meanwhile, underlining the need for generating resources to deal with the COVID-19 medical emergency on priority, Captain Amarinder Singh ordered expenditure cuts by all government departments to meet urgent expenses needed to deal with the current crisis.
He has asked all the state departments to submit detailed proposals, by April 8, on expenditure cuts to be made over the next few weeks.
"We have to save people, that should be our priority," said the Chief Minister at the meeting of the Council of Minister, adding that resources have to be made available to Health, Police and other concerned departments directly involved in the current battle, which threatens to be a long one.
( With inputs from ANI )