BENGALURU: First, the good news. On Sunday, 31 fever clinics were open to the public and 134 patients who came to the clinics were tested. Now, the worrying factor. Although the clinics were well managed with social distancing, health officials at the clinics pointed out at the shortage of staff and equipment.
They said that while some urban primary health centres have Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, some have less and others have none. Some require staff to meet the growing number of patients during this corona scare.
Speaking to TNIE, many officials said, “We have only one doctor, one staff nurse and two junior health staffers. We need at least one more doctor as cases are going to increase in the coming days.” “They have given us three PPE kits which will not be enough. It is a risk for us and we need at least 20,” said an administrative medical officer.
Another officer from another clinic said, “We have a few PPE kits, but we need more as we will have to dispose these of. The higher authorities say that there are stocks to last 10 days. We have received around 20 and we need more.”
Another official said, “We have two medical officers and three staffers. PPE kits have not come in yet but we have N95 masks. We need at least 10 more doctors and nurses. It will help as the number of patients will increase day by day. As the fever clinics have just started, we are hoping things will get sorted out in the next few days.”
However, a senior officer in charge of the fever clinics said, “Right now we have sufficient staff and sufficient stock of medicines. We have a 10-day stock of PPEs. We are told we will get another batch of PPE kits once we exhaust these. All the travel history and testing is being done and it is manageable as of now. We have seen some patients without symptoms coming out of fear and panic. They should stay at home.
However, the fever clinics are well maintained with social distancing and sanitization. Suspected patients are sent to designated hospitals to get the throat and nasal swab tests done.