After Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district reported 68 suspected heatwave deaths, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya Wednesday met health and disaster response ministers from seven states and urged them to prepare action plans to mitigate the effect of heatwaves. The meeting with ministers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana took place a day after Mandaviya chaired a high-level meeting of officials at the Centre and sent teams to affected states. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, who was also present at the meeting, said that there was a lack of accurate field-level data on heat waves — such as the number of cases and deaths — making it challenging to get a realistic assessment of the situation. He also highlighted the importance of timely action as soon as IMD alerts are received by the states. Mandaviya told the states to work on reducing the impact of the heat waves. He told them to review preparedness in terms of availability of essential medicines, IV fluids, ice packs, ORS and drinking water, besides raising awareness among the people. He urged states that have not yet prepared state-level action plans to do so urgently, asking them to plan field-level action and ensure effective implementation. Other than the action plan, the minister also asked the states to develop training manuals on heat for officials and health workers. He said: “State-level trainers need to ensure that their training is up to field level. Capacity building of medical officers, health staff and sensitization of grassroots level workers on heat illness, with focus on early recognition and management using training manuals provided by Union Health Ministry is crucial.” The states were also asked to increase health facilities’ heat resilience by ensuring uninterrupted power, installing solar panels, and adopting measures such as cool or green roofs and window shades to reduce indoor temperature. “Effective disaster response and management is collaborative work. With coordinated actions between Centre and states, we can surely ensure there are no deaths due to heat waves,” said Mandaviya, adding that India demonstrated the same during preparation for cyclone Biparjoy.
