A COVID-19 positive 51-year-old senior staff nurse, who was in charge of the ICU in a private hospital in the city, is now battling for life in the ICU of the same hospital.
The irony is that she has no staff to attend to her, as most of her colleagues are also infected and admitted in the COVID-19 ward of the same hospital, and those who are not infected have not turned up for work.
This is the story of Selvi Pandian, a senior employee of Santosh Hospital near Coles Park in the city. The hospital authorities, late on Friday evening, arranged to shift her to Victoria Hospital.
Her husband Chella Pandian is distraught. “My wife attended to so many critical patients all through her career. Now, she is battling for life and there is none to attend to her. I contacted several nurses and requested them, but no one is ready to attend to a COVID-19 patient,” he said.
Mr. Pandian believes that his wife got infected while attending to a COVID-19 suspected patient in the ICU. “My wife and her colleagues were not given PPE kits at work and that is why they got infected,” he alleged. Refuting this, hospital director Santosh Saklecha said all required protocols had been followed.
Dr. Saklecha said the hospital hired two doctors and two nurses from outside to attend to Ms. Pandian in the ICU. “They attended to her for three days and intubated her as she needed ventilator support. But unfortunately, they did not turn up today. The other seven non-infected staff too left us without any notice. We are helpless. We have been running from pillar to post to get her admitted to another hospital and finally succeeded in getting her referred to Victoria hospital through the BBMP,” said Dr. Santosh.
Asserting that the hospital did not run away from the situation, Ritesh A., hospital administrator, said Ms. Pandian had been admitted in the hospital for the last 10 days. “We have a total of nine patients, all of them being our staff, eight in the COVID-19 ward and one in ICU.” He said they did not know how she got infected as, before her, they did not have any positive or suspected patient.
“She first reported with mild fever and when we tested her on the fifth day, she was negative. However, we repeated the test again on the seventh day and she turned positive. After that, her pneumonia aggravated as she has co-morbidities — uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, and cardiac issues. Following that all ICU staff got infected. We have left no stone unturned to help the family as she is our senior staff and we need her back,” said the doctor.