Brahmananda Narayana Multi-speciality Hospital (BNMH), a eading cardiac care facility in the region, shut down operations on Wednesday evening for three to four days after two doctors and around 10 nursing and house-keeping staffers tested Covid positive.
A unit of Devi Shetty's Narayana Health, BNMH, which is at Tamolia on the outskirts of the steel city, felt it had no other option but to shut down after two of its doctors, a resident medical officer and a senior consultant, were among those who tested positive.
"If we wouldn't have closed the hospital it would have increased the risk of the spread of infection among patients. The hospital will re-open probably on Monday after proper cleaning, fumigation and sanitisation, " said Dr Perwaiz Alam, a senior cardiac surgeon.
Sources in the hospital revealed that all 60 patients, who were undergoing treatment for various ailments were being shifted to other hospitals, including Tata Main Hospital and Tata Motors Hospital.
Some of the patients are serious and on ventilator. They were shifted to other hospitals on Thursday before BNHM was totally sealed for sanitisation work.
Dr Alam said contact tracing of all those infected have been initiated. In fact, he said, two doctors, nurses and other staff were infected probably through Covid positive patients who had come to the emergency ward for treatment.
The OPD, emergency, dialysis and all other services have been suspended for the next three to four days.
The two Covid positive doctors are undergoing treatment at their respective homes.
"As per latest ICMR guidelines a patient who is not symptomatic but Covid positive can undergo home isolation and treatment. Nurses and other staff who were found Covid positive have been isolated at a separate place within the hospital campus," said Dr Alam.
The remaining 400-odd hospital staff have been asked to go on home quarantine and get themselves tested for Covid-19.
Sanitation work at the tertiary care 200-bed hospital, with an area of over 1 lakh sq feet, would begin on Friday.
