BHOPAL: The coronavirus has driven the health department up the wall after many of its officers and employees have fallen ill.
Despite that, it is barely showing any sensitivity to the disease that has taken the world into its grip, consuming more than 1,00,000 people and afflicting two millions.
The strange orders the department has passed indicate that the department has not learnt anything during the past few days when the disease has burnt its way to the state.
In an order on March 27, director of health Mohan Singh said those who were tested positive for COVID-19 should be quarantined in their homes.
On the other hand, the chief medical and health officers across the state were directed to keep the patients tested negative in hospitals.
The health department has issued orders both for those who are mildly down with the disease and those afflicted with the virus.
In those orders, the department has asked the officials to keep those patients in the hospital, who have shown the symptoms of the disease.
The patients have been divided into three categories – A, B and C. They have been directed to keep the people tested negative in isolation wards at district hospitals.
Nevertheless, those who have been tested positive should be quarantined in their homes, the order said.
Orders issued for private hospitals go for a toss
On March 29, the health department issued directives that if any person tested positive for COVID-19 should be admitted to the hospitals reserved for treating such patients.
The only COVID-19 death in the state capital happened in Narmada Hospital. The person Naresh Khatik, tested positive, was not sent to one of the hospitals reserved for treating such patients. According to the guidelines, the hospitals should be identified for treating corona cases. Immediately after the death of the patient, the district administration told Narmada Hospital to keep ten beds in isolation. The hospital was neither sanitised nor sealed.
On the one hand, people tested positive for corona have not been sent to BHMRC Hospital reserved for treating the virus-hit people, but on the other hand, the district administration has written to other hospitals to set up isolation wards.
