A large number of healthcare workers attending patients and implementing health schemes in Telangana continue to face the COVID-19 challenge. Health officials and hospital heads say the severity of the infection has been mild so far while some are asymptomatic.
Until Tuesday afternoon, around 119 post-graduates, house surgeons, MBBS students, and faculty members from Gandhi Hospital were detected with the infectious disease.
Around 62 patients, 10 post-graduates and a faculty member at the Institute of Mental Health, Erragadda, have also tested positive.
The number of COVID infections is around 80 among medicos and senior doctors at Osmania General Hospital. In several other hospitals too, such cases among healthcare personnel has been on the rise.
Even some of the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and Auxiliary Nursing Midwives (ANMs), who work at primary health centres and go door-to-door to deliver healthcare services have also tested positive. Then there are security guards and other support staff who manage crowd at hospital who have been diagnosed with the infection.
‘Inevitable’ infection
Upon testing positive for the infection, one is required to isolate for seven days. “As frontline health workers, contracting COVID is almost inevitable. The only defence now is the booster dose of COVID vaccine and that has to be taken at the earliest,” said a senior doctor.
Senior doctors have requested the State government to assure that medical attention is given to the staff’s family members with COVID. “We go home after attending patients. If we get the infection, they will get it too. The assurance from the government will help pacify our anxiety about the safety of our families,” said another senior doctor.
The appeal was made by junior doctors, and Telangana ASHA Workers Union State president P. Jayalakshmi. She has also asked for issuance of the ₹1,000 Central government incentive for ASHAs.
Junior doctors had already expected that hospitals would get busy in January and February.
The first year post graduates have not joined yet, so the work burden is shared between the second and third year post-graduates and house surgeons.
“One way to lower the burden in the current circumstances is by distributing COVID cases among all hospitals,” said a doctor.
