From the past few months we have been living in a havoc due to the COVID-19 situation. We also know for a fact that things are not changing very soon. What we must understand is that to even have the slightest change one cannot fight this alone, we all need to be united and take decisions that benefit all of us. We live in a country which is majorly populated therefore the risk of spreading this virus is much higher and we cannot afford to take that risk.
Delhi our Nation’s capital is one of the city’s in India that is very populated considering the land space which also makes it vulnerable to the pandemic. Therefore it is safe to say that the Central Government and the state Government of Delhi must work in harmony to fight the ongoing crisis.
“It is the Delhi government’s lack of concern that prompted the breakdown of the capital’s social insurance framework in the midst of Covid-19 pandemic”, says former cricketer and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Gautam Gambhir.
Delhi’s Administration seemed to be Collapsed in the Beginning :
When initially the virus had just started to spread there was a frenzy in the country, the administration was clueless because they did not know what was to be done in the first place. Gradually when the Governments imposed the lockdown things started to come under control but yet again as soon as it was lifted the cases started to increase at a much faster rate.
Delhi can be classified in two parts; one the part which is under the control of the Central Government and the other under the state Government. Now both the Governments have kept their differences aside and started working and cooperating together to find some kind of solution. Our Union Minister Amit Shah had been monitoring the COVID’19 fiasco in the country and had been emphasizing on the need to come up with a strategy to control the spread of the virus in the Delhi NRC region. Arvind Kejriwal the Chief Minister of the state understood the situation and had shown his concern. He also supported the idea that this pandemic cannot be fought alone and they need the support of the Central Government.
Why it was not Possible for Delhi Govt to Fight the Virus Alone ?
It needs a huge support system, the state very simply doesn’t have that kind of finances and cannot afford medical resources to begin with. We had a shortage of COVID’19 testing kits. People who wanted to get tested couldn’t because there weren’t any resources. Thus when this problem came to the surface the state had to approach the Central Government for medical backing up and requested more testing kits. The centre was cooperating and accepted the request. They introduced Rapid Antigen Tests in Delhi before introducing it any other state. This helped them drastically they were able to test 20,000 people and before this they could only test 6,000 people.
Centre’s Support Made the Difference :
Around the second seven day stretch of June, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that by July 31 there will be 550,000 people tainted with the infection. He said that there will be no spot left in the hospital, no beds left and the circumstance will be troublesome. His gauge depended on figure, Amit Shah expressed his dissatisfaction and said that this statement created a fear amongst people and did not help the given circumstances. He did not question whether the figure was true or false but the outcome was dreadful. Our Union Minister emphasized on the fact that whatever needs to be done in order to facilitate and fight the virus will be done.
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The other issue that Delhi was facing was the shortage of ambulances. The shortage reached to a point where calls had to be rejected because there weren’t enough vehicles. Both Centre and the State Governments came together and expanded the quantity of ambulances complex on account of which, today, no calls are being dismissed. Hospitals now have waiting areas so that no patient is compromised.
Due to the paranoia everyone wanted to go to the hospital to get themselves checked thus both the governments decided to broaden the idea of self – isolation and get in touch with a private agency to help these people virtually first and if then required ask them to move to a hospital.
Another challenge that came to the surface was the availability of beds in the hospitals. Through statistics what was shown was that the Government hospitals had around 1000-1500 beds available compared to the private hospitals that had 600-700. The Governments noticed that people chose private hospitals over the Government ones thus they decided to block 40% of the private hospital beds for the pandemic. Through this system they were able to create 5,000 beds which means they could handle those many cases. Therefore when the two Governments came together and worked in peace they were able to handle the situations much better.
In addition, Sardar Vallabhai Patel COVID’19 Hospital was built recently by DRDO Defence Research and Development Organisation and was operational in 12 days. Union Minister Amit Shah along with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited the facility that has one thousand beds dedicated to the patients suffering from the virus. The DRDO was approached to set up the medical clinic. It attempted the structure, improvement and operationalisation of the office on a war balance. With the authorization from the Indian Air Force, land arranged close to the New Delhi Domestic Airport Terminal T1 was recognized and development work by DRDO initiated on the 23rd of June 2020. The government appreciated the efforts made by DRDO and were very satisfied with the results.
These were the few examples through which we can understand the situation better and realise that together the situation can be handled far more better than handling it alone. With that being said these times are very unpredictable and we do not know what is planned for us in the future. What we can do is that we must take all the necessary precautions and be compliant to the instructions given by the Government.