The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has recruited 813 additional staff members in a span of four days for COVID Care Centres (CCCs) as part of its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Data shared by the BBMP said that as of July 14, a total of 288 doctors have been recruited in four days, of which 19 had completed their Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), while others had completed various other medical courses.
In total, including doctors, nurses and support and data entry staff, the BBMP said that it hired 813 people.
This is part of the state government’s move to recruit 1,700 medical professionals, doctors, staff nurses and support staff to scale up its workforce and establish 30,000 COVID care beds.
According to officials, to establish and run these beds, 1,800 doctors and 3,600 nurses are required.
The Health Department has calculated that one doctor per shift is needed for every 100 patients and one staff nurse for every 50 patients. Similarly, two supporting staff and three ‘Group D’ employees are needed per shift for every 100 patients. Generally, a day is divided into three shifts of eight hours each.
According to the Director of Medical Education, there are 25,000 nursing students who have completed General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) and other nursing courses and are pursuing higher education.
Likewise, there are 3,231 interns who have completed medical, dental and (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) AYUSH courses besides 1,613 postgraduate students in medical courses in Bengaluru colleges.
"The department plans to actively utilise the services of interns and postgraduate students for the COVID Care Centre (CCC) operations," the official said.
Earlier in May, the civic body had issued a notification to recruit 380 microbiologists, technicians and data entry operators for six months. In June, the civic body issued a notification to recruit 637 doctors, nurses, technicians and Group D employees to strengthen its fight against the pandemic.
As of Monday, Bengaluru had 15,052 active cases. To curb the pace of infection, the city will go for a week-long lockdown starting from 8 pm on Tuesday.
With IANS inputs