500 doctors test positive for Covid in Patna

Patna’s All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), Medical College Hospital (PMCH), and the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (PMCH), which collectively have 5,000 beds, have been affected.

The AIIMS and the IGIMS have restricted the number of patients at outdoor patient departments to 50 per department. The IGIMS has curtailed elective surgeries, while the AIIMS has reduced them by more than half.

The PMCH, where around 125 doctors have so far tested positive for Covid-19, has been forced to curtail the beds in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the medicine department by half.

“We have reduced the ICU beds from 20 to 10 after 30 of the 40-odd resident doctors in the medicine department recently tested positive for Covid-19. We may review the situation if it improves next week,” said IS Thakur, the hospital’s medical superintendent.

The PMCH has sought the services of MBBS interns in its psychiatry and preventive and social medicine departments and deputed them to the medicine department to manage its ICU and emergency. Generally, such services are looked after by post-graduate students.

At AIIMS, where around 170 doctors had tested positive, the functioning of operation theatres has been reduced by half to six a day against 33 earlier.

Saurabh Varshney, executive director of AIIMS-Deoghar, who also holds charge of AIIMS-Patna, said the situation was “manageable”, as most doctors and paramedics, who tested positive, have resumed duty after being cured.

IGIMS and AIIMS have encouraged tele consultation.