It might take three to four weeks if the non-COVID services at Gandhi Hospital were to resume. Since some operation theatres in the hospital have not been used since the past seven months, they have to be repaired and checked for presence of any form of infection. Currently, only COVID-19 patients are admitted at the government hospital.
Junior doctors (post graduate students) on Monday stated that they will boycott duties if the non-COVID-services are not resumed by November 11. From Tuesday, they started to sport black badges as part of a symbolic protest.
When COVID-19 cases started to increase from March, Gandhi Hospital was turned into COVID speciality centre. In the past seven months, doctors, nurses, junior doctors, Class-IV employees and others posted there are attending only COVID-19 patients.
Members of the Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA)-Gandhi Medical College said that they are losing out on attending patients suffering from other health complications and that will affect their academics. Demanding resumption of non-COVID services, they have threatened to boycott duties.
Hospital superintendent M. Raja Rao said he formed a committee comprising heads of all departments and held a meeting regarding the issue on Monday.
“We have taken opinions from each department. Since some operation theatres have not been in use over the past seven months, repairs and renovation work have to be taken up. Swab samples have to be collected from there thrice. If everything is okay, we can start using them. All this will take around three to four weeks. Services will be resumed according to the decision of senior officials,” Dr Raja Rao said.