Study doc deaths due to Covid: IMA to Centre

UNDERREPORTED

Study doc deaths due to Covid: IMA to Centre

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:  04.02.2021

“Shocked” by the underreporting of doctors’ deaths caused by Covid-19, the Indian Medical Association has urged the Centre to form a high-power committee to study data on doctors who succumbed to the viral infection in the past one year.

While the Centre announced that 162 doctors died of Covid-19, the association has released its database containing names of 744 doctors. In a letter to minister of state for health and family welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey, IMA president Dr J A Jayalal condemned the Centre’s apathy in releasing data and

delaying solatium to “martyrs’ families.

On Tuesday, the minister in a reply to a question from Kerala MP Binoy Viswam (CPI) told the Rajya Sabha that 162 doctors, 107 nurses and 44 ASHA workers had died of the viral infection.

While this data was based on intimation received from states on healthcare staff as per Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package insurance scheme, the Indian Medical Association had presented data stating 734 doctors, including 89 from Tamil Nadu, had lost their lives due to Covid-19 in the last one year.

“Of these, 431 are general practitioners across India, who were the first point of contact for the people. At least 25 of these doctors are below 35 years of age,” he said.

In his letter, Dr Jayalal said in the devastating pandemic, the frontline warriors of modern medicine had fought with altruism and in the bargain lost their lives but the roll of honour or the appropriate data on these fatalities had not been documented by the Centre.