The doctors across Delhi have expressed their anxiety with the latest guidelines by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which stated that health care workers who have been exposed to Covid-19 cases need to continue to work wearing appropriate PPE, and test themselves at day 5 of the exposure or if symptoms develop.

The guidelines stated that the health care workers (HCWs) could resume duties while wearing PPEs if symptoms subsided (except mild cough), and had no fever for three successive days. This has caused agitation among the doctors as staff were already insufficient and they have been working in 60 per cent capacity amid the rising number of doctors testing positive to the virus. A doctor deployed at a COVID ward in a government hospital said that people who framed the guidelines should come and work in the hospitals especially in Covid wards and then make rules. He asked if the doctors and nurses were consulted before the authorities framed these guidelines.

Around, 1,500 doctors from hospitals like AIIMS, Safdarjung, RML, Lady Hardinge, and LokNayak have tested COVID positive. A doctor working with Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital said that the government did not understand the need for isolating infected doctors, which was increasing the risk of their families’ members getting infected. In the second wave, the doctors were given quarantine for 10 days after working for 15 days in Covid wards. But the new guidelines have removed that also.

In another incident, the Employee State Insurance Corporation Hospital in Faridabad has issued a circular, stating the health care workers will have to take permission before undergoing an RT PCR test and need to pay Rs 1,500 to get the test conducted.

Source: The New Indian Express