479 Healthcare Workers Including 9 Doctors, 38 Nurses At AIIMS Test Positive For COVID-19

As the number of COVID-19 cases in the country is rapidly raising the pandemic is also taking a toll on the frontline workers who put themselves at risk to care for others. While healthcare workers have tested positive of COVID-19 across the country, what is happening at the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in New Delhi, is particularly worrying.

BCCL

So far a total of 479 healthcare workers at AIIMS have tested positive for COVID-19. This includes faculty, residents, nursing staff, attendants, sanitation, and security staff. Three of the healthcare workers including the head of the hospital's sanitation staff have died of COVID-19.

AIIMS however, only acknowledges that 329 healthcare workers there have tested COVID-19 positive, including 47 nurses, 86 hospital attendants, 62 sanitation staff, and 77 security personnel and insists that none of them were from contact with patients there.

BCCL

With the number of healthcare workers testing positive on the rise, the Nurses Union at AIIMS staged a protest near the Director¡¯s chamber on Wednesday for the third day. They have threatened to go an indefinite strike if better facilities are not provided.

¡°We had already conveyed the plights of our COVID warriors since the beginning through a multitude of letters and regular representation in task force meetings. We have been forced to resort to severe steps including mass Casual Leave on June 10 and still, our issues persist, we have decided to go for indefinite strike from June 15,¡± said Fameer CK, general secretary, Nurses¡¯ Union.

"We don't want to go on strike in these difficult times of COVID, but it seems that the administration has failed to listen to us," Harish Kajla, President of AIIMS nurses union said.

BCCL

"Nurses are severely affected by the long working hours (exceeded up to 7 to 8 hours) while wearing PPE kits in coronavirus departments. Conditions of women nurses are largely affected. We are demanding better facilities at the workplace for our nurses who are the backbone for our medical institute," he said.

BCCL

"Our demands include: implementation of uniform 4 hours duty with PPE in COVID areas, the safety of female nurses, uniform rotation policy between COVID and Non-COVID areas, the establishment of proper donning and doffing area, refreshment after doffing, display of duty roster, shuttle service during the night shift, provision of ambulance facility for COVID screening/COVID positive staff among others," said Kajla adding that there is no response from the administration.