Secretary Health reviews medical preparedness for G20 Summit

Jammu, Feb 8: Secretary Health and Medical Education (H&ME), Bhupinder Kumar, Wednesday convened a meeting with senior officers of H&ME department to review preparedness for upcoming G20 summit 2023.
The agenda of the meeting was to finalize medical arrangements for the said summit besides ensuring an organized and time based medical attention to the invitees participating in the Summit and other officials.
Pertinently, G20 is an inter-government cooperation forum of World’s major developed and developing economies comprising 19 countries and the European Union. There will be 9 invitee countries and participants from various regional (ASEAN, African Union, African Union Development Agency) and International organizations (UN, IMF, World bank, WHO, WTO, ILO, FSB, OECD, ISA etc.)
During the meeting, Additional Mission Director, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, Dr. Shafqat Khan, who has been nominated as single point of contact for health care arrangements during the G20 Summit 2023, made a presentation.
Various aspects of ensuring prompt and timely medical care at the meeting sites and other venues on the side-lines of the meeting were discussed and directions were issued to the HODs to earmark facilities in case of any medical adversity. It was also discussed that specialist care will be made available for the visiting dignities and officers of the Government of India on round the clock basis.
It was informed in the meeting that advance life support ambulances shall be deployed at the venues and enroute other excursion sites for the delegates and the visiting dignities. Besides, a medical task force shall be constituted to oversee overall arrangements at district and UT level.
Secretary asked the Director Health Services Kashmir to undertake specialized training for the healthcare personnel who shall be deployed for duties during this period.
He instructed for establishing a Control Room to oversee working of health staff and other functionaries. He also directed the officers to ensure strict adherence to Covid protocols at all places and venues where the meetings are to be held.
MD National Health Mission, Ayushi Sudan, Principal Medical College Srinagar, Dr. Tanveer Masood, Principal Medical College Jammu, Dr. Shashi Sudan, Director Health Services, Jammu, Dr. Saleem ur Rehman and Director Health Services, Kashmir, Dr. Mushtaq Rather, Joint Director Planning, H&ME Department, Rajeev Bhushan, Additional Secretary H&ME Department, Rajeshwar Singh Charark, Director Coordination, New Medical Colleges, Dr. Yashpal Sharma and other senior officers of the department participated in the meeting.