Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Tuesday took strong exception to Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja’s interview to an international television news channel where she said that one of the COVID-19 fatalities in her State was of a man from Goa, who had travelled to Kerala to avail treatment because of poor health infrastructure in Goa.
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Answering a question posed by a BBC World news presenter on Kerala having reported four deaths, Ms. Shailaja said in the televised interview that as per the State’s calculation it had had just 3 deaths on record as the fourth one was of a person who had come to Kerala from Goa only for treatment as “there are no sufficient hospitals in the Union Territory of Goa” and had died in a hospital in her State.
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Dr. Sawant took to social media to express dismay at the Kerala minister’s televised remarks, which he said contained factual inaccuracies. “I am appalled by the factually incorrect statements of Kerala Health Minister Smt. K. K. Shailaja Ji during her interview with the BBC regarding the death in Kerala of a COVID positive patient from Goa,” Dr. Sawant tweeted.
“The said patient to our knowledge and as confirmed by Kerala IDSP [Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme] team is not from Goa and has not travelled from here for lack of health facilities,” Dr. Sawant said in a post on Twitter.
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Ms. Shailaja, later on Tuesday, clarified that the fourth COVID-19 fatality in the State was of a person who had come for treatment from Mahe, which is a part of the Union Territory of Puducherry, and not from Goa as she had said while speaking to the BBC. She also called Dr. Sawant and apologised for the ‘inadvertent’ error. The Goa CM had responded positively, she told The Hindu .
Earlier, Dr. Sawant had also tweeted that Goa had a dedicated COVID-19 hospital to attend to infected persons. “Seven patients have fully recovered after receiving treatment from the said hospital and we continue to treat COVID 19 patients from Goa as well as from other States,” Dr. Sawant said, adding in another tweet that “Goa has outstanding healthcare facilities with Goa Medical College being one of the oldest and finest medical colleges in Asia”.
“For decades, we have been treating a large number of non Goan patients, especially from our neighbouring States for different ailments. I also want to inform you Madam that Goa is a full-fledged State and not a Union Territory,” the Chief Minister tweeted.
Ms. Shailaja, who has won widespread recognition for Kerala’s efforts in containing the novel coronavirus outbreak, was interviewed by BBC as part of the telecast that was aired at 9 p.m. on Monday.