Private hospitals resume operations in Bihar, rue lack of safety gears

Faryal Rumi | TNN | Updated: Apr 22, 2020, 11:02 IST

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PATNA: After 28-days of the lockdown, private hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and pathology labs resumed services in the state on Tuesday following the health department’s order on Monday directing such establishments to restart services for general patients.
However, the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Bihar, has expressed concern over this order to private health care facilities to resume services amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The association has demanded that the state government provide safety equipment, including N95 masks and personal protection equipment (PPE) kit – gloves, surgical suit and mask— to private hospitals at subsidized rates.
Dr Sunil Kumar, secretary of IMA Bihar, told this newspaper on Tuesday that the private establishments have resumed the services, and the doctors and medical staffs are willingly working, but they need protective gears and other facilities for their safety. “The state government should follow a safety protocol before issuing such advisory,” Kumar said.
He added, “Many private hospitals do not even have microbiology lab, physicians and experts for Covid-19 testing of samples. Even if some hospitals have that facility, they need rapid test kits for dedicated Covid-19 testing. The doctors and health teams need protective gears because they can’t know if the patient visting is a carrier of the virus.”
Several hospitals and private clinics are worried about their ability to treat patients with current hospital resources.
Dr Ranjan Kumar, who runs a private clinic in Kakerbagh, said most of his staff are unable to join as they are from hotspot zones. “There is low supply of N95 masks, PPE kits and sanitizers. So, there are chances of virus contraction from asymptomatic patients and I would put many people at risk,” he said.
Another surgeon, Dr Sudhir Kumar, also expressed the same concern. “On an average, we receive 20 patients who come for chest and breathing problems. If any of them are asymptomatic Covid-19 patient then the whole hospital staff and their family members will get affected. The district administration then will seal our hospitals as well like they sealed other hospitals on Bypass road,” he said.
He added, “The number of cases would go up. We want to work because it is the only source of income for us but we also need protective gears.”
Dr BB Bharti, director of a private hospital at Khemnichak said, “The OPD, ICU and emergency services have resumed today but the number of patients is low because of no public transportation. We are also facing many difficulties in getting precautionary items due to the lockdown,” he said.
Health department’s principal secretary Sanjay Kumar said on Tuesday that private establishments are being asked to take care of only non-covid cases.
“Private establishments must provide treatment of non-covid cases in the larger interest of the society. We have said that as soon as they suspect anyone having symptoms of Covid-19, they should inform the civil surgeon and everything will be taken care of thereafter,” Sanjay said.
Kumar added, “When the government can procure these equipment from the market, the private hospitals can also procure on their own. They never take permission for procurement of other equipment,” he said. He added: “When the private practitioners are running the hospitals, they need to take care of safety measures and follow the guidelines of Centre for Covid- 19.