Nursing staff double up as human couriers

Nursing staff double up as human couriers

26/06/2020

Prawesh Lama

prawesh.lama@gmail.com

New Delhi : Until May 29 afternoon, when the government designated East Delhi’s 1,500-bedded Guru Teg Bahadur(GTB) hospital as a Covid-only facility, Aakash Sharma worked at its emergency department as a nursing orderly. His colleague Sarita Yadav was posted at the gynaecology ward.

Now that the hospital is treating only Covid-19 cases, Sharma and Yadav are now doubling as human couriers to help relatives of patients deliver their messages and personal items.

Due to poor mobile phone connectivity in some parts of the building and a ban on the entry of non-medical employees inside wards, these couriers are very much in demand among relatives of Covid patients.

GTB hospital is Delhi’s second-largest Covid hospital. The biggest coronavirus treatment facility is Lok Nayak hospital in Central Delhi with 2,000 beds.

As the hospital is admitting only Covid patients, at least 10 nursing orderlies earlier with outpatient departments, surgery and other units are now working as messengers.

Working in 8-9 hour shifts, Sharma and Yadav sit behind the police barricades along with security guards, waiting to receive messages or items from the relatives of patients.