Bhubaneswar: Hours after Odisha reported 59 COVID deaths today, the highest number of deaths in a single day, Additional Chief Secretary of Health Department, Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra clarified that these are not the actual or fresh figures for the previous day,
In his press conference this evening, Mohapatra said that the Central government has issued guidelines to identify the deaths whether due to COVID or non-COVID reasons. For this, the State government has formed three-tier scrutiny committee. This includes the Hospital level committee (Hospital experts and the treating doctors), District level committee (Collector or his nominee, CDMO or his nominee, one health expert and the treating doctor) and State level committee (three senior-most doctors of the State including DMET).
These three committees review every death to ascertain whether it is due to COVID or due to non-COVID reasons, he said.
Also Read: Odisha reports highest Covid-19 death toll in a single day at 59
Mohapatra further said that during the months of May and June the hospitals were occupied by COVID patients and most of the doctors were busy in treatment of patients and containment of the disease. Therefore, they did not get much time to ascertain the reason behind the death of the patients. Even cyclone Yaas had added to the woes.
“However, as the number of positive cases has come down across the State more and more doctors at the COVID hospitals are comparatively are now free. Because of this, now they are getting time to send the audit reports of unregistered deaths in the recent past due to which we see a rise in COVID death toll or the daily figures,” he said.
Ms Kalinga