Booster Dose: Odisha to vaccinate doctors and health workers on priority

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government has directed all the district administrations to administer booster doses to doctors, nurses and health workers on Covid duty on priority.

Reviewing a meeting on Sunday, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra directed all Covid hospitals and Covid Care Centers to put up a help desk system for communication with family members and relatives of the patients.

Emphasizing upon empathetic treatment to the patients, he said that no patient should feel neglected in hospitals. All should be attended with much care, and love.The family members also should be communicated about the condition of the patients regularly.

He also directed the Collectors to visit all Covid hospitals personally and look into the arrangements like availability of medicine, man power, instruments, pathological test facilities, oxygen, seamless admission of the patients, proper treatment, trained doctors, nurse and health workers communication with family members of the patients among others.

Additional Chief Secretary Health and family welfare Raj Kumar Sharma said that all facilities and provisions put in place for combating the second wave should be reactivated with full force. 

He also asked the Collectors to recruit the retired doctors and nurses locally as per the requirement. The CDMOs and Public Health officers were asked to go ahead with booster dose vaccination with the already available vaccines in all districts.

At present Odisha has a total number of 7181 oxygen supported beds, around 1000 pediatric beds, 2024  ICUs and HDUs and 874 ventilators were already made available in all districts.  

There are 16,117 active positive cases in Odisha of which 15,640 patients are being treated in home isolation. They are being managed by the rapid response team members constituted in each district and ULBs. 

As per authorities, the present trend shows that around 97 percent of the patients can be managed without actual hospitalization. Only around 3% of the available beds, 11% of the ICUs and 3% of the ventilators are being used.