AP Govt Seeks Centre's Help For Improving Healthcare

AMARAVATI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a video conference with the Chief Ministers of various states over COVID-19 situation on Tuesday, August 11. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had also attended this video conference.

The CM told Modi that AP doesn't have any metropolitan areas in the state like the neighbouring states and does not have hospitals with huge infrastructure like in the other states. YS Jagan urged the central government to provide assistance to significantly improve medical facilities in the state.

Speaking to PM Modi in the video conference, the AP CM briefed him over the anti COVID-19 measures being taken in the state to curb the spread of coronavirus. The CM has said that AP has tested more than 25 lakh samples till date and is carrying out 47,459 tests per million population. The death rate was 0.89 percent, he said.

Speaking about anti COVID-19 measures, the CM said that 85 to 90 per cent COVID-19 tests were being conducted in the clusters. He said that COVID-19 cases are being identified at an early stage, which would help keep mortality low. The CM said that there was no virology lab in the state before the COVID-19 pandemic spread but now more than 47,000 people are being tested for every ten lakh people.

The CM also said that there were labs in every district of the state and two lakh volunteers are working at the ground level to spread awareness.

Andhra Pradesh is recording the highest COVID-19 cases between 9,000 to 10,000 as the state government is conducting coronavirus tests on a massive scale, said CM, adding 138 public and private hospitals are being used as COVID-19 care hospitals and there are 109 COVID-19 care centers, 56,000 beds across the state.

YS Jagan said that there were only 3,286 oxygen beds in government hospitals during the previous TDP government regime, but now they have increased to 11,000.

"The state government has provided over 7,000 beds in the last three months," YS Jagan said.

Speaking further he said that there are 108 ambulances in each mandal. He said there were 108 ambulances in each zone, while there were 108 ambulance vehicles before COVID-19 and another 768 ambulances were deployed during the pandemic. A total of 1088  both 108, 104 vehicles were newly introduced, said CM.

Along with CM, Home Minister Mekatoti Sucharita, Deputy CM Alla Nani, CS Nilam Sawhney, DGP Gautam Sawang and Medical Health Special Chief Secretary Jawahar Reddy also attended the video conference.