A group of 13 doctors attached with the Covid-19 wing of Central Hospital of BCCL met district civil surgeon Dr Gopal Das at Sadar Hospital on Friday and asked for more physicians to deal with novel coronavirus cases.

At preset, the district health department has deployed 36 doctors for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

“At present six doctors are being engaged for a week out of which two remain on duty daily for one of the three shifts and after completion of one week, during which they stay at the hospital, they remain in quarantine for 14 days and again join duty,” said a doctor who was part of the delegation.

“Some of the women doctors who were part of the 36-member team have children at home and one is pregnant. They are risking everything and so we have requested the civil surgeon to engage more doctors so that the 36 doctors don’t get stressed,” said the doctor, adding that the meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere and that the civil surgeon promised to look into the matter.

The head of the anaesthesia unit of the Covid-19 hospital, Dr D.K. Singh, who was part of the 36-member team, had a slightly different view.

“According to protocol, doctors more than 55 years of age, those feeding babies or are pregnant are not allotted duty in Covid-19 hospitals. If somebody is claiming they have babies and are still working in such a wing then they might not have informed the district health department. That is why they have been appointed for Covid-19 duty. Working while wearing PPE (personal protective equipment) for eight hours is also very stressful,” Singh said. “The work is not very stressful at present as only two patients are admitted at the hospital but if the number of patients increases we may have to make it four shifts a day of six hours each instead of the three shifts of eight hours being done at present.”

Civil surgeon Das said the authorities have taken note of the problems pointed out by the doctors.

“We will exempt some of the doctors and engage others in their place, as we have taken permission from the deputy commissioner to exempt some from Covid-19 duty,” Das said.