New Delhi: ‘Asking a health care professionals to work without protective equipment is like asking a soldier to go on border for a fight without a gun,” said Manu Gautam, national president of the United Resident and Doctors’ Association (Urda). Dr Gautam has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for his ‘urgent intervention’ on the issue faced by health workers treating Coronavirus patients.
Doctor Gautam told Gulf News that 83 doctors of Patna’s Nalanda Medical college in Bihar who had been exposed to a patient who later tested positive for the coronavirus are themselves ‘suspected of being positive’. There was a patient who was diagnosed positive for COVID-19 a week or so after his treatment at Nalanda Medical College. During that time, many members of the medical staff came in contact with him since they shared a common mess, Dr Gautam said.
“Later, most of them started showing symptoms after which all the 83 doctors went to the administration requesting whether they should quarantine themselves,” Dr Gautam said. They were denied permission, he added.
Doctor Sharad Gupta, a senior paediatrician and former president of Indian Medical Association (IMA) of Agra, Uttar Pradesh, told Gulf News that no Personal Protective equipment were available for the doctors treating patients at their clinics, forcing many of them to say ‘NO’ to patients coming to their OPDs. Dr Gupta said after his recent visit to Indore, a town in Madhya Pradesh, he placed an order for PPEs from a renowned Indian manufacturing company. But even after a month that company has not delivered PPEs, he said.
COVID-19 risk to doctors
Doctor Arun Shah, another renowned paediatrician of Muzaffarpur in Bihar told Gulf News that many doctors in his area have shut down their OPDs because they do not have safety gear to treat their patients. Dr Shah said that any patient coming to a doctor with a fever might carry COVID-19. But that virus is diagnosed only after 14 days, he did. But before that, the patient might infect the doctor and other patients. So to protect the doctors examining patients at their fever clinics, PPE is must for them, Dr Shah added.
Many important hospitals in Indian capital, Delhi, such as Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital (LNJP), hospitals run by the lady Hardinge Medical College and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RML) run by the Delhi government and the federal government, respectively, are running short of personal protective equipment such as gloves, aprons, long-sleeved gowns, goggles, fluid-repellent surgical masks, face visors and respirator masks.
Not up to the mark
Doctors stationed in some of the major hospitals of cities across the county have been complaining that the arrangements in their hospitals are not up to the mark, and they would not be able to address the crisis if and when it escalates.
Doctor Sachin Gupta, a general physician running his private nursing home in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, told Gulf News that he is only taking serious patients for admission in his hospital and refusing patients approaching with fever, cough and cold in the fear that they might turn out to be a COVID-19 patient.
There is also news that several government doctors have resigned from their post because of coronavirus fears. Dr Shadaab, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir, told Gulf News that his brother-in-law, also a doctor, who has just retired from the government hospital, is feeling very relieved that he retired before the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Otherwise, he would have been exposed to the coronavirus infected patients without proper protective gear, which is presently out of stock in India, he said.
No N95 masks
“Forget about PPE, the Delhi government has so far not even provided N95 masks to its doctors, nurses, cleaning staff and guards and are exposed to the waste materials,” a doctor at LNJP Hospital told Gulf News on the condition of anonymity.
“You have to treat every patient as corona positive, unless proved otherwise,” said Dr Ashish Aggarwal, a general physician. He said that according to WHO guidelines, PPEs should be provided to all the doctors, irrespective of the fact whether he or not he is dealing with coronavirus infected patients, “because you don’t know about the history of all patients”.
When asked about the preparedness, Dr Ashish said in one word “Nothing”.
“All of us are scared. We cannot treat patients in such an atmosphere. It is we who face high risk of infection as we are in direct contact with infected patients,” said a doctor of LNJP Hospital, Delhi.
While it was extremely important to flatten the curve of the infections spread by asking people to stay home, the fact is that “there is no health care infrastructure in the country and the government knows that well,” said Doctor Yogesh Dixit who runs a private hospital in Agra.
In some places, the doctors also alleged anomalies in rosters, saying that “seniors doctors are responsible for making rosters are deputing junior doctors for the COVID-19 patients”.
Least equipped
“We are least equipped to deal with a possible outbreak of the deadly disease. We don’t have sufficient supply of testing kits. The isolation and quarantine wards are a sham. The reality is far from what is being said and reported in the Indian media. All the doctors are facing risk to their lives. We lack basic protective gear, forget advanced protection equipment. The hospital has limited number of ventilators and ICUs. In a nutshell, everything has been left to God. Therefore, we are appealing to all with folded hands to stay indoors for your and our safety,” said a doctor of Ram Manohar Lohiya Hospital.
— Adil Khan is an investigative journalist based in New Delhi.
