Coronavirus | Assam district goes extra mile for frontline health workers

Goalpara has provided personalised mugs for medical staff in the district

Representational Image | “To keep the doctors and the medical staff attending to COVID-19 patients safe, we made a special care kit including a personalised mug with their photograph and a message for them,” District Deputy Commissioner Varnali Deka said.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, western Assam’s Goalpara district has been providing personalised mugs to doctors and medical staff attending to COVID-19 patients. Of the 43 people who have tested COVID-19 positive in the State, five were from Goalpara. This has increased the pressure on the district, one of Assam’s seven marked “aspirational” by the Centre.

“To keep the doctors and the medical staff attending to COVID-19 patients safe, we made a special care kit including a personalised mug with their photograph and a message for them. This is besides putting them up at the best available hotels and providing them free WiFi,” District Deputy Commissioner Varnali Deka told The Hindu .

The district authorities have also formed teams of volunteers to engage with the elderly for their well-being. Comprising teachers and college students, their task is to maintain a record of senior citizens and call them up regularly to find out about their health status and enquire if they need any assistance.

“The feedback is immediately shared with the administration for necessary action. The team is providing them with necessary services,” Ms. Deka said, adding a plan was afoot to involved Integrated Child Development Services supervisors in the campaign.

The volunteers have reached out to 135 senior citizens since starting a couple of days ago. The target is for linking 8,000 senior citizens to the “care grid” by May 17.

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Video syllabus

Goalpara was one of the first districts in the northeast to develop an alternate online teaching-learning model with modular videos of all chapters of the syllabus involving teachers with the best track record.

The audio-visual chapters have been uploaded for students.

“This has been done specially for Garo (language) medium schools that were short on teachers prior to the lockdown ,” Ms. Deka said.

The district administration has also enlisted the help of UNICEF to train the teachers on digital pedagogy for the learning from home initiative.

“We are now planning to conduct the first online unit test for senior school sections within the first week of May,” she said.