Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 18: BJP UT vice president and former Minister, Sham Lal Sharma, Mayor JMC, Chander Mohan Gupta and DDC Chairman, Jammu Bharat Bhushan expressed serious concern over the deaths due to the Coronavirus in the rural areas of Jammu during the past few days.
The BJP leaders raised concern during the meeting with the Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Dr Raghav Langer in which Director Health Services (DHS), Jammu, Dr Renu Sharma was also present.
The BJP leaders said, “Keeping in view the disturbing trend in the urban and rural areas, We conveyed to the Divisional Commissioner and Director Health Services, Jammu that this is a serious concern and the administration as well as the Health authorities need to take it as a ringing alarm and gear up to make appropriate arrangements to address the situation.” They asserted that there is a dire need to enhance the healthcare infrastructure in all the rural areas across Jammu and Kashmir to successfully combat the battle against COVID-19 thus nipping the evil in the bud in the rural areas.
They further said that the trend of increasing number of fresh COVID positive cases in the rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir needs to be immediately arrested by ensuring more strict enforcement of SOPs and restrictions in such areas especially when there is already heavy load in urban areas. They added that by providing optimum infrastructure for COVID as well as patients with other ailments the patients will not be required to move between the rural and urban areas. He said that there is dire need to establish COVID Care Centre after a distance of every 30 Kms. This would reduce the chances of the spread of the deadly virus to rural or unaffected areas to a great extent.
The BJP leaders said that there is a war like situation in the wake of the second wave of COVID-19. Instead of sitting at homes, the Advisor and Administrative Secretary Health should be on ground to tackle the present situation, he said, adding that they should take a lead and tackle the situation in the Government healthcare centres by giving more focus on rural healthcare.
The BJP leaders said that a four-tier healthcare system was already in place in the rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir. They said if the administration will work in coordination with healthcare workers, NHM, ASHA and ISM workers they can easily win this battle against pandemic.
“In rural areas, there are elected Panchs, Sarpanchs, BDC Chairpersons, DDCs who should come forward and play their vital role in creating mass awareness among the people residing in rural areas,” they said.
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