MP lends its helping hand to front-line staffs
Monday, 27th April 2020
Amid a grave shortfall in the supply of personal protective equipment that has put India’s health care workers, the front-line fighters battling against the coronavirus at serious health risks, Madhya Pradesh has come to the forefront manufacturing 12,000 PPE kits per day.
The state has taken this initiative to produce extra kits over and above the daily requirement of 10,000 kits, as per statements issued by government officials.
Chief Minister of MP, Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan stated late last week in his video conference with the Indian Medical Association that they had initiated preparations and works on the production of PPE kits soon after a go-ahead received from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and were handing over masks at equitable rates. It has also been noted that they even encouraged thousands of women in the state to come up with stitched cotton cloth masks to be sold to the state government which in turn would be sold at reasonable rates.
Mr. Kumar Purushottam, the State Industrial Development Centre’s Managing Director said that Madhya Pradesh has manufactured more than 1.5 lakh PPE kits till date since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. Out of these they have forwarded two lots each of 75,000 PPE kits to Indore and its capital city Bhopal.
He also mentioned that both Indore and Bhopal have a ready-to-disperse stock of around 40,000 kits that can be disseminated among several districts as and when the need arises. Indore has reported several individual donors as well who have been coming forward to supply PPE kits for distribution.
India’s health care workers have been known to adopt desperate measures at desperate times such as these. A dismal picture released by the press a few weeks back showed that the lack of adequate PPE equipment has caused them to make do with raincoats and garbage bags as “protective” equipment.
Source: NDTV
This has also drawn a lot of attention on social media and also several professional bodies who have pointed out that the healthcare workers are being put to great personal risks by having to tend to infected people without adequate gear. The World Health Organization has recommended standard protective equipment such as N95 masks. However, PPE kits and surgical masks have been in short supply while the number of infected people have risen exponentially.