An appeal made by a doctor of a Bengaluru-based private hospital requesting doctors to come at work to help COVID-19 patients started doing the rounds on Sunday.
Standing at the COVID ICU, Dr. Taha Mateen, Managing Director of the HBS hospital in Shivajinagar said that although he had the necessary infrastructure, there were no doctors available to treat patients besides him. Stating that it was a virtual “blood bath”, Dr. Mateen said that he had come in at 7.30 a.m. and was still at work during midnight. He said that patients were continuously calling him because their relatives were breathless and they could not find a bed in the city. “We have beds, ventilators. But we have no doctors,” he said. He requested doctors to come forward and spare six hours of their time to treat the patients.
The hospital staff told The Hindu that they would require 24 doctors and 18 nurses to come and work at the frontline. “While some of our existing staff have symptoms and have quarantined themselves, some do not want to risk their health, which is why we decided to appeal for help,” a hospital staff said.
