At least 50 railway personnel succumbed to COVID-19 in the last few months, SCR general manager Gajanan Mallya informed a virtual press conference.
This is even as the medical healthcare infrastructure was improved to provide treatment, isolation and quarantine facilities for the employees and their families at various places after taking necessary permissions from the State governments.
Patient rush
“Initially, our healthcare personnel had been treating patients with mild to moderate symptoms of coronavirus but with more cases coming in and private hospitals refusing to accept referrals due to the patient rush, even those with serious symptoms too are being treated with enhanced oxygen facilities in our own healthcare facilities. Altogether 250 beds for positive patients, 85 beds as isolation wards and 1,000 beds for quarantine were created,” the SCR genetal manager said.
Separate fever wards have been earmarked to isolate patients before the onset of other symptoms.
Doctors on contract
“In addition to our own permanent staff, we have contracted about 250 doctors and healthcare workers with each one taking a break every 14 days. The Central hospital here is testing for COVID-19. We have also started testing all our employees in all offices and workshops to identify asymptomatic patients to prevent the virus spread. About 40 persons inside Rail Nilayam and another 40 in Hyderabad have tested positive during the mass testing,” Mr. Mallya revealed.
