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Health infrastructure to be impacted with more doctors testing Covid positive

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has warned that India’s healthcare services could be hamstrung due to an increasing number of medical staff, primarily doctors getting infected with coronavirus. The national doctors’ body also stated that although mortality is likely to be low in the third wave but Omicron is 5.4 times more contagious than Delta.

It further added that given the high exposure of healthcare professionals, especially doctors, to coronavirus patients in clinics and hospitals, they are expected to have 5-10 times more COVID-19 infections than general public.

“Mortality in the third wave is expected to be low but the Omicron variant is 5.4 times more infectious than the Delta variant and due to the high exposure of healthcare [professionals] to COVID patients in clinics and hospitals, doctors are expected to have 5 to 10 times more COVID infections than the general public. In many big medical colleges/hospitals of the country have large number of medical staff, especially doctors, have been found infected. So that the health infrastructure can crumble due to the shortage of sick doctors,” the IMA said in its release.

The IMA has also provided some suggestions to ensure the safety of doctors in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. The doctors’ body said that the coronavirus duty of resident doctors should not exceed 8 hours per day and 7 days after which there has to be a quarantine of 10-14 days in the resident doctors’ accommodation as prescribed by respective hospitals.

It also added that there needs to be a provision for taking care of the doctors’ medical health and doctors who become ill during their COVID-19 duty shall be admitted to the nearest hospital at the earliest. The IMA further noted that in case of untimely demise, the doctor should be accorded the status of COVID martyr and arrangements shall be made for compensation and case-wise assistance. Business Today

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