BHUBANESWAR: Repeated advisories notwithstanding, private hospitals in the city continue to dodge the COVID-19 protocols and defy guidelines exposing their employees and posing challenge to the Health administration in tackling the pandemic.
The glaring negligence came to fore when at least 30 employees including two doctors of Blue Wheel hospital at Mancheswar tested positive in the last one week. Three more hospitals joined the list on Thursday.
Of nearly 200 healthcare workers tested positive for COVID- 19 in the State so far, 50 are from hospitals, mostly private ones in the city.
Although the Health and Family Welfare department had issued advisories to open dedicated fever clinic and separate isolation units for COVID suspects after a hospital turned down a seriously ill cardiac patient leading to his death, there is no mechanism in place to monitor the hospitals compliance.
With Health Department looking the other way, hospitals have managed to escape action as their frontline health workers get exposed to infection.
“The healthcare centres should ensure separate entry and exits, triaging of suspects to prevent them from coming in contact with general patients and restricting caregivers for inpatients,” say experts.
Private hospitals are also not creating rotation pool for their doctors and paramedic staff which would provide them a cushion in case of spread of infections in the healthcare facilities.
The advisories, on the other hand, have left the patients worried as they allege that the guidelines without proper monitoring encourage hospitals to charge more for protective gears which are hardly provided to caregivers.
The COVID-19 outbreak at private hospitals is of serious concern because closure of healthcare facilities due to cluster of cases does not augur well since a load of critically ill patients will be on existing set-ups.
Employees of the hospitals have been complaining about lack of guidelines that need to be followed while admitting coronavirus suspects but to no avail. Additional Chief Secretary PK Mohapatra said a fresh advisory has been issued and all hospitals have been asked to comply.
“Health teams will conduct surprise checks in a regular interval. Stringent action, including cancellation of registration, will be taken against those who are found violating the protocols,” he added.