The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday issued a four-page memorandum listing out precautionary measures to be strictly complied with after it admitted that the Ministry was seeing a rise in number of COVID-19 cases among its staff, along with violation of social distancing norms at workplace.

The office memorandum said the entire premises of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) at Nirman Bhawan (including washrooms, lift and staircase) would remain closed for thorough sanitisation from June 6 to 7, except emergency COVID-l9 team.

The memorandum adds that all officials are advised to take care of their own health and look out for symptoms such as fever, respiratory problem and, if feeling unwell, should leave the workplace immediately after informing reporting officers.

Mask must

It has also maintained that wearing mask is mandatory for all employees and that only asymptomatic persons will be allowed in the building premises to attend the office.

“People should maintain social distancing at least one metre between them while walking or seating and queuing up for entry and inside the building premises. Loitering and crowding in corridors should be avoided strictly and people should maintain distance mandatorily. Gathering of five or more persons at any place in the office are strictly prohibited. No meeting/conference should be done physically. Meetings may be organised through videoconference only,” the memorandum said.

ENT high-risk group

The Ministry has also identified ear, nose, throat (ENT) doctors as high-risk speciality and advised that tele-consultation be used as much as possible while walk-in patients should be discouraged.

In its advisory to the group, the Ministry has said that all patients entering ENT OPD should be thermal screened to minimise exposure to staff and to patients.

“Patients having symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 [whether ENT symptoms or respiratory symptoms] should be seen in a separate ‘COVID-19 screening clinic’ and not in the ENT OPD. Only one patient’s care-taker should be allowed at a time who is also screened and they should comply to strict precaution for COVID-19 like wearing of mask, frequent hand washing and social distancing,” stated the Ministry.

In its guidelines for operation theatre for ENT surgeries during COVID-19, the Ministry has said that to escalate the preparedness towards reinstating operation theatre (OT) practices for ENT surgeries in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, “No COVID positive patient is to undergo surgery in OT designated for non-COVID cases and COVID-positive patients to be operated upon only for emergency indications in designated OT for COVID patients.”