Tamil Nadu yet to mobilise 1 lakh idle doctors to take on Covid-19 crisis

TNN | Mar 31, 2020, 04.41 AM IST

CHENNAI: About one lakh doctors engaged in private practice in the state are idle with clinics shut, but Tamil Nadu is yet to ready them to tackle coronavirus cases should there be an outbreak.

Maharashtra and Bihar are preparing to rope in private doctors to handle such an eventuality and experts said it was high time Tamil Nadu trained the doctors by organising online classes on how to handle Covid-19 cases.

Tamil Nadu has 1.4 lakh registered doctors of whom nearly 20,000 work in government-funded hospitals. Many private hospitals, particularly speciality care centres run by ophthalmologists, psychiatrists and ENT specialists, are shut for a week.

Dr Thilak, a dermatologist from Anna Nagar, said, "As we don’t know who could be a carrier of the virus, it is unsafe for both us and patients. We didn’t want hospitals to become the source of infection."

A K Ravikumar, state secretary of Indian Medical Association (IMA), said many private hospitals and clinics are not only ready to send their doctors but also allow government to use their available hospital space and infrastructure. But these doctors should be screened before they are allowed to work to ensure that there is no community spread, said Dr C Ashok, a general physician from Thanjavur.

Government hospital doctors said procuring additional personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves and masks for these private doctors will be a challenge as the government has struggled to meet demands of the existing workforce.

To eliminate this, the IMA had proposed a model to director of public health (DPH). According to it, selected hospitals (one in every 3km) in the state can be declared dedicated fever and respiratory clinics. Any fever or respiratory cases will be referred and treated only in these dedicated centres and entry for all other cases should be barred. It would be easier for the government to train doctors for these centres.

"By this, we can also restrict the demand of PPEs and more importantly we will have enough doctors in case of an eventuality," Ravikumar said.

This model will also ensure that other patients can approach hospitals without any fear as currently many were restricting visits to government hospitals in districts which have an isolated ward in one of the blocks, said a house surgeon from Tiruvarur GH.