NEW DELHI: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Saturday lashed out at the Centre for its handling of the COVID-19 situation in the country saying that the medical body is astonished to see "extreme lethargy and inappropriate actions" from the Union Health Ministry in combatting the pandemic.

"IMA is astonished to see the extreme lethargy and inappropriate actions from the Ministry of health in combatting the agonising crisis born out of the devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic," read an official statement by the IMA.

"The collective consciousness, proactive cognisance, and requests made by the IMA and other professional learned colleagues are put into the dust bin, and often without realizing the ground realities the decisions are taken," the statement added.

It further said that the IMA has been insisting on the need for complete, well planned preannounced national lockdown rather than a few states declaring complete lockdown ranging from 10 days to 15 days, so as to getting breathing time for the health care infrastructure to recoup and replenish both the material and manpower.

The medical body added that lockdown will break the chain of this devastating spread.

"However, the central government had refused to head to implement lockdown resulting in the mounting of new patients beyond 4 lakhs every day and the number of moderate to severe cases are increasing to nearly 40 per cent," the statement said.

"Sporadic night curfews have not done any good. Life is precious than the economy," it added.

Hitting out at the Centre for the acute shortage of medical oxygen across hospitals in the country, the IMA said that the crisis of oxygen is deepening every day and scores of people are succumbing to its mismatch supply and it is creating panic both among patients and fraternity.

Though there is enough production, it is often the distribution is not proper, the IMA added.

It further demanded that the entire health care administration shall be revamped with Indian Medical Service (IMS) cadets who are well versed with the technical and administrative skill for effective execution of health care and also to establish a new integrated Ministry to serve in this pandemic with a dedicated, proactive, vibrant, innovative, and altruistic Minister and alleviate the fear of people by leading from the front.

India reported 4,01,078 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, according to the union health ministry. The cumulative number of cases in the country has now gone up to 2,18,92,676.