KOCHI: As the second wave of the pandemic is hitting the city hard, all the available machinery, including the department of health, the national health mission and the district administration, are taking all possible measures to curb the spread of the virus. The National Health Mission (NHM) has informed that they are in the process of converting the PVS Hospital in Kaloor back into a full-fledged Covid hospital.
Earlier, district medical officer Dr N K Kuttappan had said that they were planning to hand over PVS and make Aluva general hospital into a Covid care hospital instead. However, with the surge in the number of positive cases, Aluva hospital will continue to serve as a first-line Covid hospital and PVS will specialise in taking care of patients in need of critical care.
Dr Haneesh M, nodal officer of NHM at PVS, told TNIE that his team is well-equipped to treat Covid patients in need of immediate medical care. However, he feels that despite all the preparations, the machinery could still fail if the public behaviour does not change.
“We are upgrading PVS Hospital. We already have more than 50 beds dedicated to Covid patients in need of critical care. I have requested for 30 to 40 more beds now. All the other hospitals are also levelling up before the next major surge. However, public needs to be more careful,” Haneesh said.
Nurses needed immediately
PVS Hospital is currently experiencing a severe shortage of nurses, according to the management.
At present, the hospital has only 124 staff nurses and 10 doctors. There is a wide campaign to recruit more nurses and a walk-in interview will be held on April 21 and 22 from 10am to 5pm.However, since November 2020, nurses have not been provided with risk allowance up to the sum of `24,000, said a hospital source on condition of anonymity.
So, a staff nurse will get only Rs 17,000 after the appointment. The hospital sources said they are expecting applications from trained nurses who lost jobs and those who returned from other states and countries.