COVID-19 patients should be treated with care and compassion, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday. She urged doctors to provide a yeoman service to them.
The total number of coronavirus patients went up from 34 to 38 in the past 24 hours in the State.
Ms. Banerjee appealed to people to come together and stamp out the virus. Officials were running into resistance while raising exclusive hospitals for COVID-19 patients. Hospitals were not too keen to treat these patients. “Please do not do this. The job is to provide selfless service. Do we expect that the patients would not visit the hospitals?” she said.
“Even people are not letting [the authorities] cremate the bodies of the coronavirus victims. I am told by experts that the deceased cannot carry the virus, but such things are getting reported,” she said.
Ms. Banerjee said the government had opened 206 quarantine centres, where 5,165 persons had been admitted. While 3,218 of them were discharged, 1,892 were still under treatment. The Health Department designated 59 hospitals for COVID-19 patients, she said.
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