HYDERABAD: Telangana’s healthcare workers have the highest Covid-19 positivity rate of 18 per cent in the country, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare revealed on Thursday.
According to the Ministry’s data, the State beats Maharashtra, where the positivity rate is 16 per cent, despite it recording the highest number of Covid cases overall. Delhi, too, has a 14 per cent positivity rate among healthcare workers.
One of the reasons stated for such high infection rate in Telangana is that hospital infection control practices are not being followed.
“How are healthcare workers getting infected? Are they contracting the disease at hospitals? Is the standard operating protocol for hospital infection control being followed or not? We need to ask these questions,” a senior resident doctor from a Covid-designated hospital said.
Last week, top health officials in Telangana had said that there were about 2,000 Covid-19 cases among healthcare workers, with about 14 fatalities so far.
The doctor also asked if adequate number of PPE kits is being given to doctors and if they are taking precautions in the donning and doffing of the same.
Questions were also raised if the buddy system is being encouraged between healthcare workers to check on each other if the PPE suit is worn correctly.
Doctors told Express that a limited number of PPE kits, just for isolation ward staff, is being given.
“The PPE kits are almost see-through. It is lower than 70 gsm even though the claim is that it is 90 gsm. The N95 masks of Venus and 3M are the only ones that meet the health standards. But we are given poor quality masks,” a doctor said.
In certain hospitals, like the Osmania General Hospital, there is no doffing area and PG doctors take off their PPE suits in the rooms where they rest. This has led to over 270 doctors testing positive for the disease.
“If the State comes up with a weekly or fortnightly testing rule, many cross-infections can be avoided,” Ravinder Manchala, from the Telangana Government Medical Lab Technicians Association, said.
OGH still lax about cross-infections
The Osmania General Hospital Superintendent on Thursday issued an order dedicating one table to only one operation theatre (OT) for cardiothoracic surgeries. The move comes a day after 20 patients, admitted at the hospital’s pre-operative ward, contracted Covid-19.
But the Superintendent’s order has no mention of expanding the ward capacities.
“It has not addressed several critical issues such as no dedicated operation table for departments and no acute surgical care ward with equipment,” Dr P Rothih, president of JUDA, OGH, said.