Five more Postgraduate (PG) medicos from the Osmania Medical College (OMC) have tested positive on Tuesday, taking the overall number of junior doctors to have tested positive for coronavirus to 12 in the State.
Out of the five, four were working in the Maternity Government Hospital, Petlaburj while one junior doctor was posted at Fever Hospital. Two of them were availing hostel accommodation on the OMC campus while the other three were living in their homes.
There are 280 PG medicos, both girls and boys, living in hostels on the OMC campus at Koti. Authorities have started conducting coronavirus diagnostic tests for all the 280 PG medicos on the campus, out of which 58 tested negative. The results of the remaining are expected in a day or two.
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“All our PG medicos are frontline workers discharging their duties at various government hospitals in Hyderabad. Gandhi Hospital has become an exclusive Covid-19 hospital, which has led to an increase in the patient load at Osmania General Hospital and other hospitals that are affiliated to OMC. All our PG medicos have access to enough stock of N95 masks and PPE kits. However, in this weather, it’s not possible to wear them all the time while discharging our duties. I am in touch with the Director of Medical Education and the Health Minister and hopefully we should be able to resolve this issue,” OMC principal Dr Shashikala Reddy said.
The patient inflow in the outpatient wings and elective surgeries at all teaching hospitals affiliated to OMC including Osmania General Hospital (OGH), Fever Hospital, Niloufer Hospital, Chest Hospital, Government ENT Hospital in Koti and Government Maternity Hospitals in Sultan Bazaar and Petlaburj have increased in the last few days.
Members of Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA) have pointed out that it is difficult to ascertain the source of coronavirus infection due to which PG medicos at OMC are testing positive.
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“Since outpatient wings at Gandhi Hospital are closed for non-Covid patients, there is a huge patient inflow in all teaching hospitals. We are not testing the patients for Covid-19 before giving them treatment. So, there is no way of finding out the source of infection,” TJUDA members said.