Resident doctors of Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) Chennai and Madras Medical College (MMC) in a letter addressed to the Dean of RGGGH have announced that they will be refrain from attending to novel coronavirus related duties beginning 3.00 pm on Wednesday, April 22 until their requests to ensure their safety are met.
In their letter, the doctors have claimed that due to “poor quarantine arrangements” many of their resident doctors have contracted COVID-19 exposing more doctors in the state could have contracted the infection.
Pointing out that two of their letters have not incited any response from the management so far, the doctors state that they will “withhold all the COVID related duties from afternoon shift (3. 00 pm) till our requirements on quarantine facilities are ensured.”
“Because of poor quarantine arrangements many of our resident doctors have contracted COVID-19 disease. We have requested proper arrangement for a quarantine facility as per ICMR recommendations through a letter dated 16-04-2020. It's been 5 days still no action has been taken. Doctors who have been posted for COVID duty on 22-04-2020 have requested quarantine facilities to Medical Superintendent today (21-04-2020). But no proper arrangements have been made till now,” reads their letter.
The family member of a doctor at MMC informed TNM that a few of the 14 postgraduate students from the cardiology department have already contracted the infection. The source alleged that the Dean denied permission for the other PG students to take the COVID-19 test.
The dean, however, had officially instructed the PG students with COVID-19 symptoms to quarantine themselves for a period of 6-7 days and to return for tests only if their symptoms persisted.
"They were asked to be on quarantine, but it seems the hospital wants to avoid the projection that doctors were getting infected and consequentially shutting down of the department," the source said. The source also added that PG students were scared to come forward to the media with these allegations fearing consequences.
On April 17, a postgraduate student who works in the cardiology department of RGGGH tested positive for novel coronavirus. The cardiology ward was temporarily closed fo disinfection process. The student’s source of infection was suspected to be from a patient who was admitted to the hospital, however, the hospital denied that the student contracted the infection from the hospital.