Karnataka: Final year students to help in COVID-19 duties

Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr Sudhakar has directed officials to utilise final year students for COVID-19 duties as the state government is facing a shortage of staff to achieve the testing targets.

Along with direct recruitment, the final year students of lab technician courses, science students of RGUHS and volunteers will be given proper training before being assigned COVID duties.

The minister held a meeting with officials in this regard through a video conference. "The target has been set to conduct 30,000 tests per day in Bengaluru alone, but due to shortage of staff, the government is not able to achieve the target. The services of staff from 80 private labs and fever clinics are already being utilised. Mobile units are also running short of trained manpower. Therefore, the necessary arrangement is being made under the Disaster Management Act," said Dr Sudhakar in a press statement.

"Also, decisions have to be made to admit them in COVID Care Centres and Hospitals. It is the duty of zonal teams to provide ambulances wherever necessary," he added.

The minister also directed to recruit the necessary staff for this task. Senior officers Shalini Rajaneesh, Ajay Seth, Manjunath Prasad, Maneesh Moudgil, Satyavathi, D.Randeep, Ambu Kumar, Dr.Manjula and others were present during the video conference.

According to the Union Health Ministry, Karnataka so far has recorded as many as 80,863 cases of COVID-19. Out of the total, 49,937 are active, 29,310 have been discharged. So far, 1,616 people have lost their lives after contracting the infection.

(ANI)

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