The All India Kisan Maha Sabha (AIKMS) has called for decentralising COVID-19 care, by creating ad hoc infrastructure at the panchayat level to ease the burden on the primary health centres upwards to the headquarters hospitals that are currently overworked and understaffed.
According to the organisation, with the rising cases and unrecorded mortalities in the villages, the primary health centres (PHCs) that are flocked by symptomatic patients are struggling to manage the load of the disease.
In its wake, the AIKMS has called for setting up “COVID Control and Welfare Centres” in each panchayat as outreach centres to handle the preliminary load of symptomatic patients.
According to the statement by A. Chandra Mohan, State general secretary, All India Kisan Maha Sabha, the centres at the panchayats should be equipped to screen, vaccinate, isolate and be provided with medicines and support infrastructure, including ambulances. Panchayats should be summoned to designate educated youth as “COVID-19 care support workers” to take up administrative works and function as support staff for the health workers,
The primary health centres that are currently providing rudimentary intervention should be upgraded to provide the medical intervention currently being provided by the taluk hospital. The PHCs should be upgraded to meet the challenge of COVID-19 care - with additional beds with oxygen support; appointment of additional doctors and nurses, the statement said.
The AIKMS has also called for setting up additional infrastructure in taluk hospitals in the form of “community health centres with ICU care” as upgraded medical care facility to treat those admitted with virulent symptoms. The statement has called for immediate health expenditure tailored to the panchayat level health infrastructure to meet the COVID-19 challenge.
