Clusters among doctors swamp hospitals Doctors Who Have Tested Positive Wary Of Workload

Clusters among doctors swamp hospitals

Doctors Who Have Tested Positive Wary Of Workload

08.01.2022

Chennai: Just when the Covid-19 third wave has begun, an increasing number of healthcare workers in three out of four tertiary hospitals in Chennai are testing positive.

This has brought to the fore concerns on stress and fatigue among resident doctors, in-house surgeons, general physicians and nursing students who have tested positive.

Following a cluster of 27 students at the Stanley GH’s students men’s and women’s hostel on Thursday, another 15 positive cases were reported at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) on Friday, as per the cluster-list shared by the city corporation with TOI. In KMCH, 25 doctors have tested positive since January.

Doctors, who are inisolation, at the RGGGH told TOI that about 50 people are under institutional quarantine in the hospital’s tower 3. These include in-house surgeons and medical students. “It is stressful. . . after we test negative, following a brief period of home-isolation, we may have to return to duty immediately. By mid-January, cases could rise here,” said a doctor in isolation at tower 3, who did not want to be named.

Currently, as per the discharge policy for institutional quarantine, following an RTPCR positive status, if fever is not observed

Omjasvin. MD@timesgroup. com for three consecutive days, the patient is discharged. They are sent for further home-isolation for seven days. All these doctors are mostly asymptomatic and are recovering well. Almost all of them are double-vaccinated too, a doctor said.

Dean of KMCH Dr R Shanthimalar said 14 doctors have been discharged while 11 are under institutional quarantine. “Seventy-five percent of the cases had an S-gene drop, while all are stable and asymptomatic,” she said. While doctors dismissed concerns on manpower shortage, they did not rule out its possibility if cases continue to skyrocket.

“Lately, seven student nurses have tested positive. We are taking all measures on isolation and testing, to ensure the clusters stop and there’s no manpower shortage,” RGGGH Dean Dr E Theranirajan said.

At the Stanley GH, dean of the hospital Dr P Balaji said there was n o manpower shortage as of now, and all the patients are asymptomatic, and are recovering faster. “ Many have got better and we have sent some of them to home quarantine. We have also disinfected their hostel completely,” he said.

While non-O2 bed occupancy is seeing a big rise, ICU bed occupancy still remains very low, indicating that the severity of cases is less.

From 200 non-O2 beds occupied on December 20, the occupancy rose to close to 1,000, while O2 bed occupancy shot up from 200 to 1,000, but saw a dip after January 5.

Meanwhile, less than ten percent of ICU beds are occupied in city hospitals.