Bokaro health workers raise concern over ‘poor’ PPE gear

Bokaro: Several health workers in Bokaro have raised concerns over the quality of PPE kits provided to them by the health authorities. Lab technicians and other frontline Covid warriors also complained about not getting the requisite amount of N95 masks.
A few workers at the testing lab of sadar hospital said that there have been several instances in the recent past when PPE kits got torn.
Jai Prakash, a multi-purpose worker at the hospital, said, “The situation is deplorable. We are carrying our own sanitisers as those provided by the administration are of poor quality.”
Sushil Kumar Dwivedi, a technician at the sadar hospital’s TrueNat laboratory, said, “The size of PPEs is not adequate and the kits get damaged easily. Same is the case with the gloves and masks. We have requested the officials to provide good quality equipment but all in vain.”
The other nine lab technicians at the sadar hospital, too, agreed with Dwivedi.
One of the staff members of sadar hospital, who recently got cured of Covid-19 after being infected at work, said, “I am among the three employees who are testing Covid samples from Day One. While some safety kits provided by the state government are of superior quality, those procured locally by the administration here are not up to the mark.” he said.
The district planning officer, Devesh Gautam, said the administration has spent around Rs 2 crore in containing the spread of Covid-19 since March.
On being asked about the quality of safety kits, civil surgeon Dr A K Pathak denied that kits of poor quality were distributed by them but said they will check if there were any loopholes.