Ministry of Railways
SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY  STARTS MANUFACTURING PPE KITS TO FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19
Kolkata, April 16, 2020
The Union Government has taken immense measures to provide succour to the health-workers who are putting their service 24x7 to cure persons infected with Covid-19. In a recent move, the Union Minister of Finance Smt Nirmala Sithraman has announced a special package for them named Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package , which includes Insurance scheme for health workers fighting COVID-19 in Government Hospitals and Health Care Centres. This scheme is also meant for:
- Safai karamcharis, ward-boys, nurses, ASHA workers, paramedics, technicians, doctors and specialists and other health workers would be covered by a Special insurance Scheme.
- Any health professional, who while treating Covid-19 patients, meet with some accident, then he/she would be compensated with an amount of Rs 50 lakh under the scheme.
- All government health centres, wellness centres and hospitals of Centre as well as States would be covered under this scheme
To Help the Union Government curb the spread of COVID-19, South Eastern Railway  has come forward to manufacture Personal Protective Equipment  kit for protecting the railway doctors, paramedical staff, nurses and health care personnel. This is being manufactured mainly at Kharagpur Workshop and Divisional Unit under Divisional Railway Manager of Kharagpur, SER. The PPE Kits include Face Cover, Eye Shield, NS-95 Mask, Coverall /Gown with Hood, Shoe Cover, Gloves etc. It is to be mentioned that 17 zonal railways under Ministry of Railways are supposed to supply nearly 30,000 such kits.
The Kharagpur Workshop has just begun to manufacture PPE Kits, and has produced 52 PPE Kits till now while Kharagpur Divisional Unit has produced 20 Kits. As many as 72 PPE Kits have been produced so far by the SER. The entire manufacturing process is undertaken as per the approved Quality Assurance Plan and the production will be made as per requirement. These kits will be distributed among the health-workers including doctors, nurses, para-medical staff, technicians of five railway hospitals under South-Eastern Railway including Central Hospital-Garden Reach, Divisional Railway Hospital, Chakradharpur, Divisional Railway hospital, Kharagpur, Divisional Railway Hospital, Adra and Divisional Railway Hospital, Hatia.
Before starting of work, the workplace is cleaned and sanitised. The workmen are screened for any symptoms of COVID-19 and are allowed to start work after hand washing. They are maintaining social distancing in workplace and are counselled to use hand sanitizer at frequent intervals.
SER is venturing in this In-house Production which requires extreme care. Not only the stitching is to be seamless but it requires special tape and taping machine. The artisan and technicians involved in production of PPE Kits, have been kept in separate workplace to avoid cross contamination.
After stitching of the PPEs, they are sealed with special #M tapes. Each PPE is given a unique code which is marked with indelible ink on the underneath side of the hood.
The PPE is sealed in poly pack bags and further packed in cartoon packs of 8 numbers each for despatch to various hospitals of South Eastern Railway.
SER has put its all out efforts to produce high quality PPE Kit which is equivalent to the best available PPE Kit in India. Railway technicians have been motivated on making these PPE Kits to deal with this health crisis in the wake of COVID-19.
SSS
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