Kolkata: The West Bengal Doctors’ Forum (WBDF) has raised concern over the sudden flooding of spurious COVID-19 protective gears in the markets, and black marketing of masks and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) which is causing severe problems for the people and heath workers.
“Doctors in private capacity have resumed clinics and many will do so shortly. While doing so, there are challenges in procurement of personal protective gears and other sanitisation and safety equipment. It has been noticed that markets are flooded with spurious COVID-19 protective equipments. Not the least, black marketing is adding to the woes of the common man and the health care workers,” Dr Koushik Chaki, WBDF Secretary, told News18.
“I personally visited markets to enquire and was given a fake N-95 mask by a pharmacist. Such masks should be manufactured while following strict norms. But I found that N-95 masks are available in Kolkata at a price ranging from Rs 110 to Rs 450. Similar faults have been observed in other protective gears as well,” he said.
He added, “We had a meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and requested her that the sale of protective gears must be done after proper checking via stringent notifications and appropriate quality. These gears should be made available at affordable prices through fare price government outlets or through government designated vendors immediately. There needs to be an emphasis on the fact that an unsafe healthcare provider is unsafe for the common people too. More than 200 healthcare workers are already affected and several are in quarantine. The already meagre healthcare force is being stretched too far for about four months now. We are hopeful that the government would act against these racketeers stringently.”
The WBDF also urged the West Bengal government to ensure every healthcare institution has a 24X7 real time digital display system notifying impatient category-wise bed availability status for the knowledge of people and healthcare providers. The doctors' forum believes that widespread public awareness efforts to notify general public and the healthcare workers about COVID-19 and non-COVID treatment centers will minimise harassment of the sick people running around to go to the appropriate place for appropriate care.
Expressing concern over rates of RT-PCR test for SARS-COV-2 in private nursing homes and hospitals, the WBDF asked state government to intervene and reduce its pricing and look into the issue of designating treatment facilities for healthcare workers who need hospitalisation for COVID-19 treatment.
“The cost of treatment of Healthcare providers must be borne by the employer institutes irrespective of whether there is health insurance or not,” Dr Chaki said.
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