Nabarangpur : Over 50 working journalists in Odisha’s Nabarangpur district, under the aegis of ‘Odisha Union of Journalists’, on Monday staged an indefinite dharna near the Sub-Collector’s office here, demanding the State Government to provide ventilators among others at the COVID hospital in the district headquarter town.
The scribes of both print and electronic media from all the 10 blocks of the district joined the dharna to press for their six-point charter of demands to combat the coronavirus menace in the district.
The charter of demands include immediate functionalisation of ventilators at COVID Hospital in Nabarangpur, make available of more ambulances with Basic Life Support (BLS) equipment, appointment of adequate health staff and undertake frequent sanitisation in the district etc.
“The only COVID hospital in Nabarangpur does not have a single ventilator even though the coronavirus cases are rising daily in the district. Unfortunately, there are very few ambulances available for COVID patients, ” said District Media Union President, Sushant Kumar Behera, .
“Critical Covid-19 patients of our district have been referred to Bhubaneswar or Berhampur based hospitals. Our people are dying before reaching COVID hospital in Bhubaneswar or Nabarangpur due to unavailability of ventilator facilities in our district,” he added.
“We are forced to stage dharna as our district has witnessed a constant spike in the number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases and the District administration didn’t pay heed to our genuine demands,” another journalist said.
We will intensify our protest if the State government fails to address our concern at the earliest, warned another jounalist.
Over 20 organisations including prominent political parties, District Bar Association, farmer organisations, Bus Owners’ associations, traders unions, Janajati Surakshya Manch, Mula Nibasi Sangh etc extended their support to the dharna.
As per the State Health Department, a total of 4, 443 Covid-19 cases have been detected in the district so far. As many as 3, 763 persons have recovered from Covid-19 while eight persons have succumbed to the deadly virus. Presently, the district has 670 active cases.
Ms Kalinga