JAIPUR : To help relatives of Covid patients seeking life-saving drugs and injections, the state health department is coming up with a portal where information on injections such as tocilizumab, remdesivir and dexamethasone will be available.
The relatives will have to upload hospital prescriptions and the portal will provide the payment gateway to them and information from where they get the injections and life-saving drugs. Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation Limited (RMSCL) has already started ordering these injections and drugs in case the third wave strikes.
“The attendant of a Covid patient will have to go to the portal, upload the doctor’s prescription and he would be directed to the payment gateway. After payment, he would be given a specified address to collect the medicines and injections like remdesivir. Last time, we had complains of people of not getting these things timely. Thus this would be taken care of,” RMSCL managing director Alok Ranjan said.
As health minister had already urged private hospitals to set up oxygen plants, RMSCL is working on modalities to get the medicines and injections by the first week of August.
“Though the Centre on July 16 had ordered the state governments to start procuring medicines and other life-saving injections, we have already started the process. Hopefully, by the first week of August, we will start getting our injections and medicines and we will stock them properly to get ready for the third wave,” said Ranjan.
Ranjan added that since there are indications that third wave might affect the children, various medicines in syrup form for pediatric use have also been ordered. “We have ordered for the syrups of paracetamol, zinc, vitamin-C and azithromycin among others,” Ranjan added.
Amidst theories that remdesivir is no longer life-saving in case of critical Covid patients, RMSCL has already ordered for nearly 1.42 lakh injections.
“For every critical Covid patient for his initial nine days, he needs anti-viral medication. Remdesivir has been an effective anti-viral injection and it has shown good results in critical patients in Rajasthan during the first and second waves,” said Dr Sudhir Bhandari, principal and controller, SMS Medical College, who also heads the core team of Covid care and management in the state.
