Andhra Pradesh announces three-pronged strategy to check rise in COVID-19 cases

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Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday (April 26, 2021) announced that it is adopting a three-pronged strategy to check the spread of COVID-19 across the state.

During a review meeting on the prevailing coronavirus situation, the state government issued orders to adopt a three-pronged strategy to ensure better treatment, oxygen, quality food, medicine, water and sanitation facilities in COVID-19 hospitals, allotment of beds to COVID-19 patients and check the services of 104 call centre. 

The meeting was chaired by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. 

The three-pronged strategy, which will work from district to state level, will ensure no private hospital charge more than the prescribed price and also monitor the medical services in the hospitals.

The district collectors will divide all the hospitals treating COVID-19 patients into clusters and there will be five to eight hospitals in each cluster. The district collector will also appoint a district level officer as in charge of each cluster. The officer, who visits the hospitals frequently, will monitor them and ensure that no private hospital will charge more than the prescribed fees. Wherever any complaint is received, the officer will respond quickly and take necessary action.

In the same way, the officer will look into the hospitals that treat COVID-19 patients without permission within the cluster.

The district collector will also set up a flying squad at the district level to check private hospitals from overcharging. Among them will be an officer from the Drug Control Division, one from the Vigilance Enforcement Division and another from the Medical and Health Department. The squad will ensure private hospitals won't charge more money. The squad will assist in making the cluster in-charges work more efficiently. 

A special task force committee with senior officers at the state level has also been set up to review the performance of clusters and flying squads in the districts from time to time. 

The state government has given the responsibilities of all activities of COVID-19 to a Joint Collector in the district, transferring their existing duties to others. The Joint Collector has to ensure good sanitation facilities, quality food supply, availability of doctors and paramedical staff, setting up of help desks etc.

They should also monitor the performance of Arogya Mitras through CCTV cameras and should coordinate with the call centre and ensure all works are done on time. Along with these, the JCs are also responsible for data updating and management of hospitals.

The Chief Minister also directed to increase the number of COVID-19 tests and ensure the results come within 24 hours of testing. He stressed the need for focused testing, creating awareness on coronavirus, CCTV cameras in hospitals and setting up of health desks etc.

The YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government also issued orders to cap the CT scan fee at Rs 3,000 and the RT-PCR test at Rs 499. It also gave orders to set up oxygen production plants and ensure a continuous supply of electricity to hospitals. 

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh reported 9,881 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours taking the total count of cases in the state to 10,43,441. The state now has 95,131 active cases.