With the centre struggling to handle the second wave of covid pandemic amid crumbling health infrastructure and shortage of medical personnel, it may rope in final-year students of medical and nursing courses to join forces against Covid and incentivise those joining in future recruitments, news agency ANI reported.
The decision is said to have been taken at a virtual meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with experts to review oxygen and medicine availability. The human resource situation in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, and ways to augment it, were discussed during the meeting, the agency reported citing sources. The human resource situation in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, and ways to augment it, were discussed during the meeting, the report said. The final details are likely to be announced on Monday, they added.
The decisions taken at the meeting might also include delaying the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) examination and incentivising MBBS pass-outs studying for it to join Covid duty. The review meeting took place amid reports of healthcare personnel feeling overwhelmed in some parts of the country due to the surge in the COVID-19 cases, with testing facilities also being under a strain.
In an earlier review meeting with Modi, institutions like Army had highlighted that they had opened temporary hospitals and their medical staff is also treating civilians wherever they can.
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India on Sunday clocked 3.92 lakh fresh COVID-19 cases with 3,689 deaths due to the infection in the past 24 hours, as per the Union Health Ministry. Meanwhile, as a handful of COVID-19 vaccination centers opened for people in the age group of 18-44 years on 1 May, 84,599 beneficiaries received the first dose.
