By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Ever since the Coronavirus pandemic broke out, the SOA Deemed to be University here has joined hands with the state government to combat the disease and save lives of the people of Odisha.
Doctors, nurses and paramedics of the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital, SOA’s faculty of medical sciences, have been deployed in four large Covid-19 Hospitals and two Covid Care Centres (CCC) being run by the university in collaboration with the state government with the only objective of nursing the infected persons back into good health.
The first standalone Covid-19 Hospital, the largest in the state with 625 beds including 125 ICU beds—also one of the largest in the country— was set up by SOA on April 6 in its own university campus here with the support of the Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd. (MCL).
Two other fully equipped Covid-19 Hospitals with 170 and 150 beds were set up subsequently at Kendrapara and Talcher on April 12 and 20 respectively expanding the scope of treatment for those afflicted with the infection. Altogether, the facilities created by SOA account for over 2100 beds including 157 ICU beds for Covid-19 patients in the state.
The fourth Covid-19 Hospital with 366 beds was set up at Chandpur in Nayagarh district on July 23. In addition, two Covid Care Centres (CCC) at Jamujhari on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar (500 beds) and Jatni (300 beds) also started functioning in July. The support and cooperation received from the central and state governments in establishment and running of these hospitals have been praiseworthy.
The doctors, nurses and paramedical staff of IMS and SUM Hospital deployed in these facilities have been working round the clock to ensure that the patients received proper treatment. Many of these medical professionals have remained away from their children and families for weeks to serve the patients and ensure that they received proper care.
However, unfounded, motivated and malicious information about the functioning of these Covid-19 Hospitals spread by a section of the media using a video which has gone viral and ignoring the enormous effort being put in by the medical professionals has come as a rude shock. Such attempts to mislead the public will only spread panic and demoralize the Covid warriors. In such a scenario, the SOA authorities have decided to take recourse to legal action and initiating steps to sue the concerned news channel and social media platform for defamation.
