Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to focus on improving the country's medical facilities, adding that it had to learn some lessons in the wake of the spread of COVID-19.
"Corona experience has taught us a lesson that there is an urgent need to step up the medical facilities in the country. A visionary outlook and thinking is necessary to take proper and adequate measures in the medical sector for a better future. Strategic planning should be done to create comprehensive medical facilities in the country," KCR said in a meeting that the Prime Minister held today through videoconferencing with chief ministers of various states.
"We never had any corona like experience in the past. We do not know how many days this pandemic will last. While dealing with the existing Corona pandemic, we should focus on how we are going to deal with such a situation in future and how are we going to offer better medical facilities to people when the need arises," the chief minister said.
KCR also spoke about maintaining the ideal doctor, people ratio, need for new medical colleges, and the need for Centre and states to jointly work to achieve it.
The CM also stated that the Telangana government has taken all measures to contain COVID-19 due to which the recovery rate in the state is currently at 71 per cent, while the death rate is at 0.7 per cent.
"We have increased the number of tests mfold. We are giving better treatment to the Corona affected patients. We have kept ready adequate number of beds, medicines, staff and other equipment. We are diligently following the guidelines issued from time to time by the ICMR, Niti Aayog and the Central government. Medical and Health Staff, Police personnel and other government machinery are working round the clock and rendering their services," he further said, informing the PM.
Medical and Health Minister Etela Rajender, Government's Chief Advisor Rajiv Sharma, and Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar were among others who were present during the meeting.
Apart from Telangana, the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, Bihar, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh were present in the meeting.
( With inputs from ANI )