West Bengal: Covid threat makes hospitals shield nurses

Prithvijit Mitra | TNN | Updated: Apr 19, 2020, 11:00 IST

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KOLKATA: With multiple frontline healthworkers testing positive to Covid-19 over the last one week, there is a scare among city’s nurses. This has led leading hospitals to tweak their rosters and minimize exposure to positives and suspects. One of them was admitted to a private hospital and then shifted to MR Bangur Hospital after she developed symptoms on Thursday. A nurse each from the Howrah General Hospital and MR Bangur tested positive earlier this week, apart from two others from a city private hospital and a government hospital.
Two others tested positive at North Bengal Medical College Hospital a week ago.
A 35-year-old nurse at CMRI Hospital was admitted with symptoms on Thursday. She has been moved to MR Bangur, forcing CMRI to quarantine four healthworkers, including a doctor, two nurses and a staffer. The nurses have been quarantined at MR Bangur.
Like several other hospitals, CMRI is operating with a depleted nursing force to shield them from exposure. With the number of patients having slid, the hospital now has around a hundred nurses on duty per shift.
RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) has tweaked its shifts for nurses and created weekly rosters with more time-off to protect them from transmission. No healthworker has yet been infected at RTIICS. “Though some level of apprehension is bound to be there, they are fearlessly doing their job,” said RTIICS zonal director R Venkatesh.
At Peerless Hospital, a dedicated pool of 25 nurses has been created for Covid unit. The rest have been kept away from Covid suspects. “A few nurses had to be quarantined after they had come in contact with suspects but thankfully the latter tested negative,” said Peerless medical superintendent Sudipto Mitra.
A state health department advisory for healthworkers has recommended separate rosters for those working in isolation wards and fever clinics. While some private hospitals are following the advice, others say they don’t have enough nurses on board to allow a week’s off, as stated in the advisory.
Charnock Hospital, which closed down recently after a few healthworkers tested positive, said it will be a challenge to have enough workers on board once it reopens. “While some of our healthworkers are braving it as soldiers, they are being hounded in their localities,” said MD Prashant Sharma.