The Congress Party has questioned why the state government, when it should have been preparing for the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, scrapped plans to build a hospital in Tura dedicated to Covid-19.
Through a press release today, Congress MLA and spokesperson Zenith Sangma said that the decision to halt the project shows that the government did not have proper planning and strategies in place to contain the spread of the virus.
Sangma was also critical of contradictory messaging of the government.
“Instead of being pro-active in dealing with the Covid situation, the government is rather found to be taking panic decisions. On the morning of May 5 the news spread that there would not be lockdown. Instead there will be identification and declaration of containment and micro-containment zones to prevent the spread of virus. But on the contrary, at around 1pm on the same day, the government announced that from 8pm there will be complete lockdown for five consecutive days,” the opposition party spokesperson stated.
The decision was announced with little time for the public to prepare, which resulted in people rushing to markets and shops before the lockdown.
Sangma then switched to the subject of the Covid hospital.
“Since the advent of the pandemic there was a demand for the construction of a designated Covid hospital in Tura. However, the Chief Minister realised that the numbers were going down at one point of time last year and therefore put a halt in the project. How can he draw such a conclusion when everyone was preparing for the second wave of Covid?” the Rangsakona MLA questioned.
Now with the coming of the second wave, the government has reopened plans to build the hospital after “sleeping for more than one year”. Complacency and a lack of farsightedness has led to the loss of precious lives, Sangma added.
