Director of Public Health G. Srinivasa Rao, who has been in the thick of COVID-19 management and vaccination programme, was admitted to a private hospital on Monday morning for cardiac evaluation. He underwent several tests and is stable.
Discharge in 2 days
The senior official is expected to be discharged in a day or two from Apollo Hospitals in Jubilee Hills where he is undergoing treatment.
From the time the first COVID case was detected in the State on March 2 last year, Dr Srinivas Rao played a crucial role in planning and managing operations to check the spread of the infectious disease, tracing and isolating COVID patients and suspects. Since the Health department was at the centre of pandemic management, there was tremendous work pressure on him as Director of Public Health (DPH).
After video discussions with Union Health Ministry, he used to convey changes in COVID management protocols to his subordinates. During the peak of the pandemic, Dr Srinivasa Rao and employees of the Health department clocked more than 18 hours of work a day.
The cases started to come down from November 2020. However, it did not reduce the workload of Health staff. Preparation for COVID vaccination began in December and with that the DPH and the Health department once again plunged into work.
After the DPH’s hospitalisation, Health staff opined that medical check-ups should be conducted for the entire department as they have been under tremendous pressure over the past one year. They also hope additional staff would be recruited to bring down burden of work on each.
