There is an acute shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like face masks at this time of the Corona Crisis. The Government Hospital in Guntur, the other day, called for Public Donations for this equipment for the doctors and the medical staff working to cure the suspected and infected patients.
However, according to a report in Deccan Chronicle, N95 masks in Government Hospitals are being diverted to VIPs including politicians and government officials for their self-usage, their followers, friends and kin, and even their visitors. The report says that DMHOs of Krishna district alone were forced to give away 3,000 out of the 4,000 high-quality N95 marks.
Things are more or less the same in the other districts as well. Andhra Pradesh has procured nearly 5.13 Lakh pieces of 2ply and 3ply masks at present and nearly 1.30 Lakh bottles of hand sanitizers of 100/200 ml volume. There is no transparency about how many of them have rightfully reached the doctors and medical staff risking their lives.
The Government is confining itself to showing allotments of masks in bulk to DMHOs in each district while it has no clue about the distribution of the masks from there.
