The decision of doctors in the Covid-19 task force along with health minister Banna Gupta on April 2 to put on hold recruitments to RIMS for a month and focus solely on the coronavirus combat has come with side-effects.

On Wednesday, a patient died of renal failure as the hospital did not have a technician for dialysis present, said a doctor requesting anonymity.

“RIMS is already short-staffed. And now that private clinics, including dialysis centers, are closed, all patients are coming to RIMS,” the doctor said. “If outsourced health workers decide to stop working, the system will collapse. We don’t have enough people at RIMS to handle Covid-19 along with other patients.”

Another RIMS doctor said there weren’t enough technicians at operating theatres and laboratories though the recruitment process was complete and even the high court on November 5 last year had directed their appointment within three months.

Contacted for comment, health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarn just said: “A proper directive in this matter has been given to RIMS.”

RIMS medical superintendent Dr Vivek Kashyap could not be contacted despite repeated phone calls.

RIMS director Dr D.K. Singh said he had made the government aware of the problem. “Of three technicians for dialysis, two are women in advanced stages of pregnancy and thus on leave. Handling cases of dialysis will be difficult for RIMS now, though we have enough machines,” Dr Singh said. “I asked the Indian Medical Association to help. If they bring in technicians from private nursing homes, I have promised the same salary.”

A lab technician at RIMS said during the coronavirus outbreak hardly any private technician would volunteer.

“I see no logic in delaying appointments. When the JPSC can start the selection process to appoint 380 doctors on April 3 by publishing an advertisement, what is wrong in giving appointment letters to health workers already selected months ago?” the technician said.