Noida: Wearing a mask? There's none to check for Covid norms here

NOIDA: The Sector 30 district hospital has no checks to ensure people wear masks, maintain social distancing and lacks a Covid helpdesk.
On Monday, TOI found people in queues outside OPDs, pharmacies and even in the waiting area had no masks on. Nearly 500-600 patients visit the hospital, one of the biggest in the city, every day but no staff had been deployed to ask people to wear masks.
Sanju (26), a resident of Sector 22, standing in a queue to collect medicines at the hospital's pharmacy, did not have a mask on. Caught unawares about the mask mandate, he said, "Nobody told me to (wear a mask) when I walked in."
A woman, waiting for her turn to see a doctor at the OPD, was seen clutching a mask in her hand. "I am carrying a mask. It's very hot inside the hospital to wear a face mask so I am holding it in my hand. I will wear it when I enter the doctor's chamber," she said.
They are not alone. Barring a handful, most people visiting the district hospital on Monday seemed oblivious to the health department's April 13 order that makes wearing face masks mandatory in all public places, including offices, schools/colleges, hospitals, malls and cinema halls and public transport.
The hospital, meanwhile, is yet to set up a Covid desk for compulsory checking of symptomatic patients, also a part of the Covid guidelines. The order, issued by CMO Dr Sunil Sharma, also makes it mandatory for hospitals to have thermal scanners at all entry points.
District surveillance officer Dr Amit Kumar said they were educating people through social messaging and advisories to take Covid protocol seriously as cases rise . "People will have to become more aware. Most of them have grown out of the habit of wearing face masks. But we will ensure that people follow Covid measures in the hospital," Dr Kumar said.
A doctor at the district hospital, who did not wish to be named, said several of his colleagues in the hospital had been infected by the virus in the previous three waves, some more than once. "We keep reminding people to wear masks all the time. We put our lives at stake while attending to patients every day. At the end of the day, we too have families to go back to. The infection will not spare us."
Currently, the district hospital is operating from two locations. While the Sector 30 building has the emergency, orthopaedics, inpatient wards and homoeopathic and skin clinics, the gynaecology departments and TB clinic among others are operating on Sector 39 campus.
Meanwhile, the director of the pulmonology department in Noida's Fortis Hospital, Dr Mrinal Sircar, said the facility has already started taking precautions to protect patients and doctors from infection. "Wearing masks and maintaining social distancing is necessary. We are also trying to educate people to wear masks inside the hospital and while seeing a doctor," Sircar said.