HYDERABAD: The Telangana Health Department has set up a special ward at COVID-19 designated Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad to exclusively treat any working journalists who get infected with the dreaded virus. The special ward is incidentally named after TV journalist Manoj Kumar, who has recently succumbed to coronavirus.
Like the police and medical staff who are the frontline warriors in the fight against COVID-19, even journalists on the field also face high risk of getting infected with the virus since they have been relentlessly covering news related to coronavirus and medical facilities being provided to the affected persons. About 16 Journalists are reported to have been infected with the virus so far. Recently, Manoj Kumar, a crime reporter with a Telugu news channel, died due to a lack of timely and adequate medical treatment for which the state government and the Gandhi Hospital authorities received severe criticism from the media fraternity.
Following Manoj’s death, the state government has decided to set up a special ward and provide treatment exclusively for working journalists who are infected with the virus.
COVID-19 tests are also being conducted on Journalists covering the Secretariat beat after three secretariat employees have tested positive for coronavirus.
As of now, Telangana has registered 4,111 cases with 191 new cases reported on Wednesday. As many as 156 persons have so far died due to coronavirus. 1,817 patients were cured and have been discharged from hospitals in the state so far. The number of active Covid-19 positive cases at various government hospitals is 2,138.
