by: Navjeevan Express

COVID-19 combat: After Gujarat HC rebuke, Dy CM defends govt

NE NEWS SERVICE

GANDHINAGAR, MAY 24

After a stinging rebuke from the Gujarat High Court on the conditions prevailing in the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital as well as the testing policy amid the coronavirus outbreak, the state government on Sunday said it would file a detailed reply on how hard it had worked to control the situation.

Deputy CM and Health Minister Nitin Patel

The High Court had termed the state’s coronavirus testing policy as an artificial method to control the number of cases.

It had also said the Civil Hospital was worse than a dungeon and that conditions prevailing there for patients were distressing, painful, and pathetic.

“Gujarat High Court has asked some questions, given some guidelines, suggested some measures, and given some opinion. The chief minister, law minister, I had a detailed meeting with advocate general Kamal Trivedi and the state government will file its reply next week,” Deputy CM and Health Minister Nitin Patel told reporters.

On the HC’s question on how many times the health minister had visited Civil Hospital, Patel said, “Though I would not like to comment on matters which are under the consideration of the high court, for the allegations which have been levelled against me personally, I will say that in the last two months I have visited the city civil hospital five times.”

“Though my age is 64 and being a senior citizen, I am advised not to venture out of home, for the last 55 days, I have worked without taking a break,” he said, adding he attended core committee meetings on the outbreak daily and personally intervened in many health department issues.

He said the state government had arranged for beds in large numbers, medicine, medical equipment, PPE kits, and had also implemented the most severe lockdown to contain the outbreak.

Patel also took a swipe at the opposition Congress and said this was not the time to play politics, adding that everyone knew the condition in Maharashtra, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country, and where the party was a constituent of the ruling MVA government.

“The Gujarat government, from CM to ministers, officials to those working on the ground, its corona warriors, have done a tremendous job during the pandemic. At such a time, it is important to appreciate those who are fighting against this invisible virus so that their morale remains high,” Patel said.

State records 394 new coronavirus cases, 29 deaths as total number of infections mount to 14,063

Gujarat on Sunday reported 394 new coronavirus cases and 29 deaths, including 28 from the worst-hit Ahmedabad, taking the overall case count to 14,063 and fatalities to 858, a Health official said.

A total of 21 of the 29 deceased- 28 from Ahmedabad and one from Surat-were suffering from comorbidities, the official said.

The number of the people recovered from COVID-19 rose to 6,412 with 243 patients discharged from hospitals in the day.

Gujarat now has 6,793 active cases, of which 67 are on ventilators, the official added.

Ahmedabad now accounts for 10,280 COVID-19 cases and 697 deaths of the total 14,063 cases in Gujarat, the official said.

The number of the COVID-19 cases in Surat and Vadodara stands at 1,320 and 836, respectively.

Gujarat has so far tested 1,82,869 samples, the official said, adding that a total of 4,65,312 people are placed under quarantine in the state.

Gujarat COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 14,063, new cases 394, deaths 858, number of discharged people 6,412, active cases 6,793 and people tested so far 1,82,869.

2 killed in Maharashtra as man asks Gujarat-returnee to get quarantined

A man and his relative were killed in the early hours of Sunday in Latur in Maharashtra in a mob attack after they asked a Gujarat-returnee truck driver to get quarantined amid the coronavirus outbreak, police said.

The incident happened in Bolegaon village in Nilanga tehsil, over 275 kilometres from here, at around 2:30 am, a Kasar Shirshi police station official said.

“Driver Vidyaman Baramde, who lives in Mumbai, returned to Bolegaon from Gujarat and deceased Shahaji Patil asked him to get home quarantined. However, Baramde went to his sister’s place in Chandori village and returned with a mob which thrashed Patil (50) and his relative Vaibhav (24), both of whom died in the attack,” he said.

The official said a murder case had been registered and eight people have been detained.