NEW DELHI: While the Hindu Rao Hospital (HRH) on Saturday started admitting corona patients, the resident doctors staged protests inside the hospital premises seeking better facilities for frontline healthcare workers.
"The doctors just got an alert over WhatsApp that the Covid-19 facility will be fully operational from Sunday onwards. There were no talks on how the doctors will be quarantined and what arrangements have been made for isolation of the HCWs.
Also, the air conditioners (ACs) are not functioning, and working inside those wards wearing PPE kits that too of poor quality is not possible. Apart from these, salaries of two months are yet again pending,” said Dr Abhimanyu Sardana, president, RDA, HRH.
Dr Sardana, however, noted that the administration had a meeting with the RDA representatives and their demand for better ACs has been accepted. On Friday, the nurses’ association too had staged a protest demanding payment of pending salaries.
According to sources, two Covid positive patients were admitted to the hospital on Saturday. The Hindu Rao Hospital, under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, is the largest hospital under the civic body. Earlier this month, it was decided to convert the hospital into a dedicated Covid facility. Initially, it was scheduled to begin operations from June 16, but the then North MCD Mayor Avtar Singh sought a week more for completing preparations.
"Number of measures are being taken to improve infrastructure at HRH including the provision of ACs, CCTVs etc which will be visible soon. On the clinical side, we have adequate healthcare professionals. All those put on duty with the starting of COVID care facility will be provided with accommodations as per norms fixed by GNCTD," said a hospital official.
The hospital currently has 980 beds of which 37 are unavailable due to some buildings being declared dangerous and 111 are complement beds. HRH has got 17 ventilators, eight ICU beds, four HDU beds and 250 beds with oxygen.