BENGALURU: Doctors and healthcare staff at the BMCRI’s Covid control room in Victoria Hospital are a worried lot. After three nurses from the hospital tested positive earlier, a PG doctor working at the Covid war room centre in the hospital tested positive on Friday. Seven other doctors, who were working at the war room, too have shown symptoms and their swab samples have been sent for testing.
“A 25-year-old woman PG doctor had gone to her hometown Mangaluru and returned. She was asymptomatic but showed mild symptoms later. She tested positive on Friday,” confirmed Director, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMRCI), Dr C R Jayanthi. It is from this control room that doctors monitor patients in all the three zones — red, green and orange — in the hospital where Covid-19 patients are being treated. The war room also handles tele-counselling, monitors patient records and tracks ICU patients across the state.
The doctors at the control room also work at the hospital on a rotation basis. The load of work has stretched the healthcare staff, and many of them, on condition of anonymity, said they are highly stressed. “Those sent on leave after working and observing quarantine have been asked to come back. With the increasing number of cases within the hospital, we are scared for our lives and that of our families,” said one of the doctors. Meanwhile, beds in the hospital, including at the ICU, are almost full and patients are being directed to Bowring Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD). Recently, after the nurses tested positive, the doctors had said that the quality of PPEs provided to the staff at the hospital was poor.
But the director brushed it off, saying the PPEs have no problem, but agreed that the doctors are stretched with the increase in number of cases. Asked if all workers were taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as advised, the doctors said that as there is no evidence of it being able to prevent coronavirus, and because of it side-effects, they were not taking the drug. “There is no scientific evidence for any medication, including hydroxychloroquine. Some workers in the hospital have taken it, but not all,” said a senior doctor.