Congress demands TRS government to release white paper on Covid deaths

Hyderabad: The Congress party on Sunday demanded the State government to issue a white paper on the deaths due to Covid-19, along with details of compensation paid to the victims' families.

Hyderabad City Congress Committee (HCCC) Minorities Department Chairman Sameer Waliullah said, "The TRS government has suppressed the death figures due to Covid. As per official figures, as on December 25, a total of 6,80,553 people were tested positive and 4,021 lost their lives. But the real toll of deaths is much higher than the official figure.

The State government has started receiving applications to pay compensation of Rs 50,000 as announced by the Centre. However, it did not make any attempts to cover all the families who lost their loved ones, he added. Sameer pointed out that the authorities were taking into account only the deaths that occurred in hospitals. There were several cases wherein patients died on the way to hospitals or at the entrance of hospitals due to denial of admission. Many deaths that occurred at home or in remote villages were also not recorded.

In many cases, the hospital authorities did not mention Covid as the cause of death in the death certificates. Instead, they mentioned 'pulmonary arrest' or 'pulmonary cardiac arrest' as the cause of death. The State Government should frame new guidelines to include all such deaths as Covid deaths so as to help the victims' families, he demanded.

He said that so far nearly 7,000 families have applied for compensation due to Covid deaths although the official death toll is 4,021.