Dharamshala: Since the 1 st Covid death in Himachal reported on 23 rd March, was at Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College (RPGMC) Kangra at Tanda, the premier institute RPGMC is working hard to beat this pandemic. Its doctors, paramedical staff and other front line covid warriors of this institute ,earned a lot of appreciation for their work in this field, but as the Corona cases in Kangra and its adjoining districts are flaring up the staff of the institute have also started getting infected.
According to the authorities of RPGMC Kangra, 29 doctors of the institute are on infection list till Wednesday. Though the institute has more than 350 doctors on the role all the services are kept to work as usual.
Dr Bhanu Awasthi Principal RPGMC said that the infection is generally spreading due to the negligence of the attendants of the patients, who don’t follow guidelines as per the government directions. He said that the situation is getting worse as they don’t even wear masks and follow social distancing. He said that daily 4-5 covid positives are being detected from the main wards. “ I salute my Doctors and other staff to work tirelessly in these conditions. We are screening every one and now started a rapid antigen testing too for covid,” said Awasthi.
Most of the doctors infected are said to be post-graduate students and interns, the frontline of the healthcare system at the insitute.
Health care workers are becoming Covid positive day by day, situation can get worse in the coming days
Another senior doctor said, “The only remedy is to follow good practices by people around. Health care personnel are getting infected due to surge.” It is true that Healthcare workers are becoming covid positive day by day, the situation will get worse in the coming days, he added.
Few administrative officers of the institute said that the other hospitals are flooding the referral cases to this college, most of which could be treated even in primary hospitals. These cases, if avoided, could give much space to specialist doctors to treat critical patients with more ease. This could also lessen infection rate of the doctors and staff of RPGMC.
Another doctor said, “Every health facility should be able to test and treat ( if not seriously sick but others) and follow the fundamental principle of referral. Decentralise testing, Empower health care facilities, Treat as per requirement and refer as per need, Create awareness at grass root level.”
Dr Awasthi said that out of the 29 infected doctors, 9 have reported negative, but they have to wait for another 9 days to join back duty as per central government instructions.
Dr. Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College (RPGMC Kangra) is the second oldest medical college in Himachal Pradesh and is more popularly known as RPGMC Medical College.
As far as the general covid conditions of the Kangra district is concerned there were a total of 1195 confirmed covid cases till Tuesday (8/9/20) of whom 761 have recovered, 424 are still active and there have been 10 covid deaths recorded in the district till date. 134 patients are under home isolation care. On Tuesday, the district magistrate also tested positive.
The administration has established three covid care centres in district at Baijnath, Dadh and Fatehpur and one district covid health centre at Dharamshala. Few patients are also admitted to Tanda Medical College and military hospitals in the district.
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
