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This is an archive article published on May 19, 2021

PCMC sets up Pediatric Covid Task Force, audit of hospitals underway

Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil announced the setting up of the task force, which will be headed by Dr Deepali Ambike, head of the Pediatric department at YCM Hospital, and comprise many prominent doctors from city hospitals.

Children at pediatric ward of YCM hospitalChildren at pediatric ward of YCM hospital

The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation on Wednesday set up a six-member Pediatric Task Force of expert pediatricians from civic and private hospitals. The task force started an audit of hospitals across Pimpri-Chinchwad on Wednesday.

Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil announced the setting up of the task force, which will be headed by Dr Deepali Ambike, head of the Pediatric department at YCM Hospital, and comprise many prominent doctors from city hospitals.

“Since experts have a predicted a third wave in which children are likely to be the most affected, the PCMC has initiated measures to tackle such a situation. We have set up a six-member task force of expert pediatricians to decide on treatment, management of ICU beds and other preventive steps. The task force will provide guidance for treatment of children,” the PCMC chief said.

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Dr Ambike told The Indian Express on Wednesday that the first job before the task force was conducting an audit of hospitals. “This involves trying to find out the number of hospitals treating children… and availability of children’s wards, ICU facilities, oxygen and ventilators,” she said.

Dr Ambike said as the task force has been set up in anticipation of the third wave, which may affect children more than the previous waves, the Task Force will form treatment protocols as per the guidelines of the central government and execute them in all hospitals treating children.

“Recruiting manpower will be a challenge, especially trained doctors and nurses for child care and treatment. We will also have to check the availability of equipment like ventilators…,” she said.

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She also highlighted the importance of educating parents through videos and webinars on precautions to be taken in the third wave to protect children against Covid-19.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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