As cases spike, hospitals in Hyd fly in nurses from Kerala

As cases spike, hospitals in Hyd fly in nurses from Kerala

Amrita.Didyala@timesgroup.com

Hyderabad: 28.06.2020

Over the past fortnight, two private hospitals from Hyderabad flew in about 50 nurses from Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala, on charter flights to meet a sudden surge in demand for trained staff. With Telangana registering a little less than 1,000 Covid-19 cases daily and most private hospitals packed with patients, many of them are even ready to pay substantially higher salaries to attract nurses.

“In fact, other hospitals in town are frequently approaching us seeking nurses on a temporary basis,” said an official from a prominent corporate hospital in the city.

Many are offering three times the regular salary. “I am getting 10-15 calls a day from corporate hospitals asking for nurses. They are offering Rs 45,000 to Rs 50,000 a month, which is almost three times the pay previously offered,” said Laxman Rudavath, general secretary, Nursing Officers Association of Telangana.

The problem, hospital managements say, is that the staff requirement for handling Covid-19 patients is higher than those for regular patients. “For instance, if a regular patient requires one nurse every day, for Covid-19 patients the requirement is three times that. That many nurses and doctors shy away from Covid-19 duties means the availability of staff is lower than what is needed,” said the manager of a prominent super-specialty hospital chain.

Doctors also attribute the crunch to a lack of qualified nurses to handle ICU duties and, in many cases, an increasing number of nurses testing Covid-positive. The latter, they say, has resulted in multiple batches of nurses going into 14 days’ quarantine. “This has further reduced the strength. In fact, nurses are taking unilateral decisions to go into quarantine once any of their colleagues test positive,” said another official from a prominent corporate hospital in the city.

The crisis, officials added, has limited the intake capacity of private hospitals treating Covid-19 patients. Almost all corporate hospitals currently have a waitlist of 20 to 30 patients in emergency and up to 70 patients in general wards. “We went to seven different hospitals to get a single bed during an emergency. Forget the government-approved rates, beds are not even available at five times the cost,” said one patient’s attendant.