NMC starts process to recruit staff for its 5 Covid hospitals

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation on Friday started the process to hire 218 health care staff including doctors, paramedical staff, ward boys and computer operators to start its five dedicated Covid hospitals having capacity to admit 500 patients.
The administration submitted the proposal to the standing committee which is scheduled to meet on September 8. Agenda for the meeting was released on September 4.
As per the proposal, the NMC will appoint 11 specialist doctors against the approved strength of three doctors. The appointment of additional eight specialists will put an additional burden of Rs21.50 lakh. NMC will also recruit 37 medical officers, five hospital managers, 115 staff nurses, five x-ray technicians, five ECG technicians, 10 data entry operators and 30 ward boys.
Apart from incentives, the NMC will also pay an additional Rs10,000, Rs7,000 and Rs3,000 to doctors, nurses and other contractual workers if they wear PPE kits. For this, the NMC will require Rs32.66 lakh per month.
Standing committee chairman Vijay Zalke said the process was started with the panel’s permission. “With alarming situation of Covid-19 in city, I gave post facto approval to recruit doctors, paramedical staff and ward boys so that facilities at NMC’s five upgraded Covid hospitals could be utilized,” he said.
Zalke said that in May five hospitals and health centres which were in a shambles were converted into Dedicated Covid Health Centres (DCHC) with a capacity of 450-465 beds, including 50 in the ICU. “Unfortunately, NMC could not start these hospitals,” he said.
Three hospitals — Indira Gandhi Rugnalaya (IGR) at LAD Square, Pachpaoli Maternity Home and Isolation Hospital at Rambagh — have been converted into DCHs with a bed capacity of 130, 110 and 60, respectively.
The NMC also converted its health centre at KT Nagar into a 130-bed DCHC. Here, the civic body has also developed an ICU facility. Besides this, the NMC had also converted Ayush Hospital in Sadar into 35-bed facility. These five hospitals, located in different parts of the city, would come handy in case of further spike in cases.
During the five-day long marathon meeting of general body held in July, corporators from both ruling and opposition parties in the NMC had raised the issue of these hospitals remaining a non-starter despite NMC spending Rs2 crore on their development. Senior corporators including Dayashankar Tiwari had accused the then municipal commissioner Tukaram Mundhe of irregularities in converting the hospitals into five dedicated Covid hospitals.
Mundhe had admitted that the NMC could not start these hospitals due to lack of manpower. Later, the administration started the process and informed mayor Sandip Joshi and standing committee chairman Vijay Zalke.