The All Nyishi Youth Association (ANYA) has resented the difficulties faced by Covid-19 frontline workers and the manner in which the state government has allegedly been handling the quarantine centres.
The association also demanded a white paper from the state government on the fund received from the Centre as well as via donations from the people for combating the pandemic and the details of managing it.
In a statement on Sunday, ANYA president Byabang Joram and general secretary Bengia Tada said the state could have improved the emergency health facilities during the four months of several phases of lockdown since March 25.
“The government has done nothing despite support from the general public, NGOs and CBOs. It rather exacerbated the situation with no containment of the virus,” the duo said, pointing to the “mishandling of the complex health issues” and the spike in positive cases.
Seeking to know how many designated and dedicated Covid-19 hospitals have been created, the ANYA termed as myopic and ill-conceived the decision to convert TRIHMS, the state’s lone referral hospital into a Covid-19 hospital.
“Why have doctors and frontline workers engaged in Covid-19 duties not been provided separate dedicated pandemic homes? They are working from their respective homes, which endangers the health of their family members besides going against the WHO directives,” the duo said.
ANYA also criticised the health and family welfare minister for the “unprofessional” handling of the situation through “trial and error” methods and demanded adequate personal protection equipment for all frontline workers working round the clock.
The other demands included ensuring availability of all required medicines, compulsory and regular health bulletins updating the people on the status of the pandemic and the standard operating procedures in place, and ramping up the testing capacity to 10,000 per day.