BHUBANESWAR: Battling a Covid-19 outbreak in its facilities, the AIIMS-Bhubaneswar on Friday announced closure of its walk-in patient department (OPD) services until further orders.
Director Gitanjali Batmanabane said the decision for closure of the services was taken after 31 staff, including 11 doctors and one faculty member, got infected and several others sent in home quarantine after coming in contact with positive cases.
“Many of our staff members are also unable to report to duty as the areas where their residences are located, are under containment zones. If the situation continues like this we may face severe staff shortage even to run our IPD services. We have decided to temporarily discontinue the OPD services to consolidate the workforce and use our resources optimally,” she said.
Dr Batmanabane, however, informed that day-care services, radiotherapy, dialysis, trauma and emergency, life-saving surgeries and teleconsultation and IPD services will continue as earlier.
“Patients who do not require immediate admission can consult through telemedicine facility. Serious patients can get admitted through emergency and casualty as emergency services will be provided 24x7 by the faculty of all speciality and super speciality departments. All staff members, who are at risk of exposure, have been directed to strictly follow the safety protocols to protect themselves from infection,” she informed.
The AIIMS-Bhubaneswar has also launched a mobile application ‘AIIMS Bhubaneswar Swasthya’ to provide online consultation on virtual medium. The app can be downloaded from Google playstore from Friday onwards.
Apart from the 31 health workers, 75 patients have also been infected recently. They are undergoing treatment at the Covid isolation unit of AIIMS. Seven of the doctors have recovered and rejoined duty. Of around 600 doctors, including senior and junior residents, and 700 nurses, more than 10 per cent are in self isolation.
The AIIMS Director said despite the Covid protocols, 85,235 patients were provided OPD services, 7727 patients availed emergency services and 3027 life-saving surgeries were conducted between March 19 and July 6.
As many as 200 cases have been reported in the last few days from four premier health institutes in the State - Acharya Harihar Postgraduate Institute of Cancer (AHPGIC), SCB Medical College and Hospital, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Post Graduate Institute of Paediatrics (Sishu Bhawan) at Cuttack and AIIMS-Bhubaneswar.
