Bhubaneswar: With COVID-19 cases rapidly surging in the city, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) is reportedly finding it difficult to manage hospital beds for frontline workers infected with the virus.
This came to the fore after the Steel and Mines (S&M) Department sought the BMC Commissioner’s intervention to get an infected assistant section officer (ASO) admitted to a COVID hospital.
According to a report in Indian Express, the ASO, Ranjan Jena, was deployed by the government to work with the BMC team in Ward no. 46 to fight the spread of the pandemic.
Jena tested positive on Monday, but is still awaiting transfer to a COVID-19 hospital.
The S&M Department wrote to the BMC Commissioner that Jena lives in a rented room with some roommates in Aerodrome area of Bhubaneswar. Since home isolation is not possible, Jena requested BMC officials to shift him to a COVID-19 care facility for treatment, the letter said.
Instead of doing so, BMC officials advised him to take medicines and stay in home isolation.
After his request for hospitalisation fell on deaf ears, the ASO sought the intervention of the S&M Department’s intervention with which he is employed. Following this, the department’s Special Secretary, SK Swain, wrote to BMC to get Jena hospitalised.
The issue has flagged health condition of COVID-19 patients who are encouraged to go for home isolation. As of August, 67 per cent of all active cases in Bhubaneswar were in home isolation to reduce burden on COVID-19 hospitals, the Indian Express report said.
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