Real Hero-Dr. Manjit Singh-a recovered cancer patient’s vigorously fight with the pandemic
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
The District Mohali was the first district in the state which had got the inkling of what was going to happen in the coming days. The district health department had alerted the residents about the Coronavirus threat well before others. It had issued an advisory on 23 January appealing the residents to take precautionary measures to stay away from a possible big trouble in the form of Coronavirus.
Following the instructions of Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, On January 23, he, along with District Epidemiologist Harmandeep Kaur and other health officials, rushed to the Mohali International Airport and had a full-fledged meeting with the Airport Authorities who were caught unawares in a way. Dr Manjit Singh gave a detailed introduction about a new kind of disease and asked the airport authorities to start screening passengers having travel history to China and also set up Isolation ward at the airport. On the directives of Health Minister, at the same time, the district health department had started the screening process at the airport.
At that time, no confirmed case of the deadly disease had come to light from any part of the country. He was keeping a close eye on the growing scare of Coronavirus in China, the alleged origin of the pandemic. An eye specialist with experience spanning over 30-32 years had seen difficult and challenging times ahead.
Under the supervision of Health Minister, we had started preparing ourselves to tackle a possible unprecedented situation in January itself. All the district health officials were issued instructions to make necessary arrangements. When the first Coronavirus case surfaced in Mohali, I did not get scared and panicked and instead, took up the position to combat the invisible enemy.” On account of the highest number of cases, the government has recently declared Mohali as a Hotspot district but Dr Manjit Singh who is a recovered cancer patient has high morale and strong will power and hopes that very soon; they will be able to curb the further spread of the disease. A soft-spoken Dr Manjit Singh says, ‘Though we are faced with more challenging situation than other districts, yet we are very much hopeful that strenuous and continuous efforts of our health teams and cooperation of the public will bring out good results and things will get normal very soon.
April,19,2020
