BJP MLA Sudip Roy Barman recently landed in trouble over "unauthorised" entry in Covid centre.
Two days after it reported the highest ever Covid cases in a day, Tripura broke that record with 691 new coronavirus cases on Friday. Though the BJP-ruled state has an overall positivity rate of 0.67 per cent, this figure stands at 21 per cent in its capital Agartala - among the highest in the country and one indicative of community transmission, as per the World Health Organisation.
It is in the backdrop of this data that a top BJP MLA, Tripura's former health minister Sudip Roy Burman, has hit out at his own government raising serious allegations of mismanagement in the treatment of COVID-19 patients in key hospitals across the state.
Mr Burman, who was dropped from the state cabinet over "anti-party activities" last year, has questioned the authenticity of Tripura's Covid fatality data, and alleged that the treatment facilities, mostly concentrated in Agartala, were low on staff and other basic amenities, including oxygen supply and testing facilities.
"There are 230 patients in the state's top Covid centre, GBP Hospital, and 41 of them do not have beds. Oxygen is in short supply in the ICU. The CT scan machine, X-Ray machines, including portable ones, are not working, and the government is not aware of it," said the former Congress leader, who has been vocal about the lacuna in state's health infrastructure.
He also alleged that very few senior doctors in GBP Hospital were treating coronavirus patients. "Except four doctors, all the senior doctors have refused to go inside the Covid treatment centre. The junior doctors and medical college students are on duty," Mr Burman said also flagging a shortage in the auxiliary health staff. In many cases patients have died inside the ambulance, he said.
Mr Burman, a popular leader and the son of former Tripura Chief Minister Samir Ranjan Burman, also said there is a discrepancy in the state's Covid fatality data.
"The records of Battala Crematorium in Agartala show 12 more Covid patients were cremated than the figure shown in government record. Statewide, the actual deaths may be higher that what is shown," he said, adding that the death count may rise to 650 in Agartala alone.
Some 136 people out of more than 14,000 patients have lost their lives to Covid till now in Tripura, which has the highest fatality rate - 0.97 per cent - among the eight northeast states.
Almost 50 per cent of all cases recorded in Tripura surfaced in August.