Chandigarh, August 31, 2020: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said better sense had prevailed and that the Congress government has realized its mistake and rectified it by taking back its inhuman decision to increase service charges of all medical facilities during a time of pandemic.
In a statement here, former minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said now that the government had understood after being pointed out that it should not try to profiteer from a human crisis, it should increase the funding to the health sector. “There is an urgent need to improve health infrastructure. The general public has passed a virtual no confidence in the State services with a number of village panchayats passing resolutions that they would not allow transfer of COVID-19 patients to government facilities”.
Dr Daljit Cheema said the government should utilize funds at its disposal in the Disaster Management Fund as well as the CM Relief fund and take immediate steps to improve medical infrastructure. “The Health sector should be accorded top priority”. He said the government should also provide subsidized and even free ambulance service in case of the poorer sections of society for transfer of COVID-19 patients to hospitals so that no one was kept away from treatment.