By Manjima Dhakal, Kathmandu, May 23: Local governments across the country are playing a commendable role in getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control as well as in treating the patients.

Though the pandemic has now spread to rural corners, the local levels have been fighting tooth and nail in treating the infected individuals.

This year, local governments could not prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the villages as earlier when they were unable to maintain quarantines for newcomers to the villages.

But now, many of them are doing their best to fight the pandemic. It is becoming increasingly clear that the role of local governments is more effective and prominent than that of other levels.

Many local governments have established their own isolation cen-tres, are operating free ambulance services, free COVID-19 tests, have properly managed the dead bodies and even food for the needy. Not only that, some local government heads are providing their own vehicles as an ambulance when ambulance service is insufficient. What’s more, they are also providing their salaries for the treatment of the patients.

The COVID hospital of Birendranagar Municipality of Surkhet has become viral on social media, where medical personnel and even patients hold different posters and pamphlets with motivating messages to raise hopes among the COV-ID-19 warriors in the hospital.

Dev Kumar Subedi, head of the municipality, said that they prepared such materials with the aim of boosting willpower among them and that such messages also encouraged medical staff to be dedicated to their job.

According to Subedi, the hospital has 50 beds including 25 beds equipped with an oxygen facility where one medical officer and 12 staffs are working. Subedi said they are also providing treatment to patients from other places as the municipality is also the provincial headquarters.

Sunawal Municipality, Nawalparasi has prepared a hospital with 10 High Dependency Unit (HDU). Bhim Bahadur Thapa, municipal head, said they are going to operate a 19-bed isolation centre and 10 HDUs from this week.

Now, the municipality has been pro-viding three ambulances for free, one for pregnant women, one for non-COVID cases and one for COVID-19 cases. Mechinagar Municipality, which is a border municipality of Jhapa, has effectively managed the people coming from India by setting up a quarantine centre.

Like-wise, the Tilottama Municipality of Rupandehi has brought into operation an isolation centre in a very short period of time. Birgunj Metropolitan City of Parsa has become a role model by establishing a hospital in no time.

Bharatpur Metropolitan City has introduced an application for the scientific management of the crisis. Isolation management, live tracking, daily report and self-evaluation are available in the application. It has established isolation centres in different wards.

“All the health service providers inside the metropolis have a separate desk to look after patients showing symptom/s of the virus. The ones suspected of infection will be referred to the new hospital dedicated to the virus,” said Renu Dahal, mayor of the metropolis. Not only municipalities, but rural municipalities of the country have also been doing exemplary work in fighting the pandemic.

According to our Sindhupalchok correspondent, people's representatives of 12 local governments of the district have been working on various awareness and isolation works to rein in the second wave of the virus.

Similarly, Dipendra Kumar Shrestha, ward chairman of Bhotekoshi Rural Municipality-1, said that they have been spending their salaries to save the lives of the people of the ward.

Likewise, bearing in mind the rising coronavirus infections, the Marshyangdi Rural Municipality of Lamjung has started COVID-19 testing in the villages. According to the municipality chairman Arjun Gurung, swabs have been collected from those showing symptoms of the virus.

Though the local governments are making praiseworthy efforts to fight the pandemic, they are facing the shortage of medical staff needed for the same. Many of them are facing a shortage of masks, thermal guns and personal protective equipment.

They also stated that they are having a hard time breaking the chain of COV-ID-19 as the public tend to flout the order of the authority, Basu Ram Ghimire, head of Tilottama Municipality, Rupandehi, said.

Ashok Byanju Shrestha, the chairperson of the Municipality Federation, said local governments are fighting the uphill battle against the pandemic largely on their own. Dr Sarad Onta, the public health expert, said though the governments are doing all they can, they can't be effective for lack of a national strategy to address the menace of the raging pandemic.

At present, local governments are working in a fragmented way in absence of coordination at the national level. He further said local governments this year can't work well in the prevention of the pandemic due to the lack of quarantine centres, despite leaving no stone unturned in treating the infected.

He suggested local governments focus on contact tracing to break the chain of infection which can be done effectively only by local governments and that market monitoring and creating public awareness by the local governments go a long way to taming the wave of the pandemic.