Making videos & defaming the efforts & risk put by staff unfair, says DC Cachar on viral video of Tikal hospital

April 23: A video made by an air passenger taken for mandatory Covid test at Mahatma Gandhi Model Hospital at Tikal near Salganga in Cachar became viral in social media on Thursday wherein the girl who arrived from Delhi alleged severe mismanagement at the testing centre and violation of Covid protocols. Reacting to this, Keerthi Jalli, Deputy Commissioner of Cachar on Friday said, “Making such videos and defaming the efforts and risk put by our staff and their families is not fair.”

It needs mention here that as per the latest SOP issued by the state government, all air passengers travelling from outside Assam were to undergo mandatory Covid test on arrival in the airports within Assam. As such, Cachar district administration made arrangement for testing the passengers at Mahatma Gandhi Model Hospital at Tikol. The testing was started on Wednesday. District administration has also made provision of buses for taking the passengers for testing at Tikal.

DC Jalli said, “It’s a new set up and will certainly take time to settle. Nothing can be perfect without civilians taking responsibility for their own behaviour. There are 250 chairs made available where passengers may sit and fill up the form and then go one by one to the counters. Nobody sits ever. We request them to sit and they still refuse. This was the original system planned. We will also deploy more persons for maintaining discipline in testing site for the flight passengers.”

“It is unfortunate that people are still doing so. We are always accessible and have evolved our systems even previously. I earnestly request people to mail us practical issues and we will surely act upon it as we had done in the past. It is trying times for all of us but to constantly highlight what is not being done without sharing any responsibility is just demoralising the overworked health staff,” added the Deputy Commissioner.

She categorically stated that such videos made by air passengers amounts to defaming the efforts and risk put by the staff is indeed very unfair. About the viral video made by the air passenger, DC Jalli said, “The civilian concerned could herself volunteer and have helped the administration further by requesting co-passengers to cooperate.”