Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is not yet handling the crisis arising out of the coronavirus pandemic effectively and the health infrastructure of the state was in a shambles.
“Hospitals are in bad shape, medicines are unavailable and poor people have to suffer. The government should get more serious on the pandemic and must not hesitate in seeking help from Opposition parties,” Yadav said.
“The government says it will give some money to daily wagers who are suffering due to the coronavirus outbreak. I would like to know how do the authorities plan to execute it when there is no specific data available on daily wagers. I doubt if there will be another scam in the name of funds allocated for this purpose,” he added.
Yadav, who addressed a press conference at the SP headquarters in Lucknow, said all pre-scheduled programmes of the Samajwadi Party have been postponed till April 22 and urged workers to use phones and digital means to communicate with one another.
“In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, we have decided to postpone our programmes, including our cycle (party symbol) yatra till April 22. Also we would like to appeal to everyone not to go out unless it is very important and use phones and digital means of communication.”
The number of people infected with novel coronavirus in state reached 19 on Thursday as two more suspects tested positive at the King George's Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow.
One of the patients is a resident of Lucknow with a travel history to London, while the other person is from the Lakhimpur area. He is said to have returned from a Gulf country recently. Both are undergoing treatment at an isolation ward in KGMU.
The Lucknow patient’s family members were put under home quarantine and their samples sent to a lab for testing. It is now being investigated how many people came in contact with the patient from the Lakhimpur district.
On Wednesday, a junior doctor who was part of a medical team involved in the treatment of COVID-19 patients at the KGMC tested positive. The doctor, who was working as a non-PG junior resident at the hospital’s medicine department, has been shifted to the isolation ward, said hospital spokesperson Dr Sudhir Singh.
So far, Lucknow has reported five positive cases. A total of 24 people, who had returned from abroad, were sent to home quarantine from the Lucknow Airport and a stamp of ‘Home Quarantine’ was put on their hands.
Meanwhile, long queues were witnessed in the city’s government hospitals, including Lohia Institute, KGMU and Civil Hospital, where people with flu-like symptoms reached to get their samples tested.
The hospital administrations are struggling to handle the situation and make people realise that they need not panic.
All doctors and support staff at KGMU have been asked to be on standby and their leaves have been cancelled in an attempt to deal with the rush.
On Tuesday, all competitive and educational examinations in Uttar Pradesh were cancelled and the closure of educational institutions was extended till April 2 by the government.
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