Cases rising, city stares at shortage of health workers

Noida: A limited strength of doctors, nurses and contractual staff has raised concerns that the city, already grappling with the rising Covid-19 cases, could face manpower shortage in the coming days.

The two nodal officers appointed by the state for Noida, Dr Jiledar Rawat from Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University and GNIDA CEO Narendra Bhooshan, on Wednesday held meetings with administrative and health officials to review the district’s preparedness.

“There aren’t enough doctors, paramedical and nursing staff. Contractual health workers have also been leaving due to fear of infection. We have suggested taking help from other departments like PWD and NCC that are not currently directly involved with Covid management,” Dr Rawat said.

Bhooshan said, “It is difficult for government facilities to keep OPDs functional right now. Noida and its neighbouring districts have a very high number of cases, but staff can also be requisitioned from districts that are less affected.”

He said some agencies supply manpower from as far as Assam. Officers have been asked to get the workers, who had returned during the reverse migration, back if required.

Bhooshan also emphasised that Noida needed to ramp up testing. “Testing needs to be done for all with ILI and SARI symptoms, all primary contacts and symptomatic secondary contacts, along with random sampling. However, it is not as per the desired level, especially at government centres,” he said.

The nodal officers also issued a notice to Sharda Hospital on arrangements based on accounts from patients. “I visited the hospital on Tuesday and it seemed to have good facilities. However, when we made random calls to patients through the call centre, they had several complaints. We have sent them a notice to improve the facilities, otherwise action will be taken under the Epidemic Act,” said Dr Rawat.

On delays in contact tracing, he asked the CMO to contact private labs so they can provide positive results to health department before giving it to the patient. “Often, the patient gets the test done but is wandering for several days till the health department contacts him or her. Private labs send reports after much delay. This time needs to be reduced, so that the department can initiate contact tracing immediately to break the chain of infection and demarcate containment zones,” said Dr Rawat.

The nodal officers said that while the district currently has enough beds to manage cases, officials have been asked to identify more facilities where additional Covid infrastructure can be created.