New Delhi: As many as 150 resident doctors at Delhi’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital have been given 15 days’ leave for their upcoming exams, adding to fears of a staff shortage ahead of the predicted Covid-19 peak in June-July.
LNJP, one of the national capital’s dedicated Covid-19 facilities, is the largest hospital operated by the Delhi government. The exams are being held in line with a 30 June deadline set by the Medical Council of India (MCI) and constitute a further strain on the hospital’s roster of 600 doctors, say staff.
Since the hospital’s medical director Dr Suresh Kumar and two other health workers were identified as Covid-positive Saturday, doctors have been scared that other staffers may have been exposed too. Over 100 doctors from the facility, meanwhile, were deployed in other districts across Delhi in April.
Dr P.N. Pandey, who assumed charge as LNJP’s new director Sunday, acknowledged the concerns, telling ThePrint that the exams should not have been announced. However, he expressed confidence that there will be no shortage, noting that the exams will be wrapped up by 30 June.
ThePrint reached Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain and other officials of the health department for comment through mail, phone and WhatsApp messages, but there was no response until the time of publishing this report.
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‘In a precarious situation’
According to the health bulletin issued by the Delhi government Monday, LNJP hosts 732 Covid-19 patients. Of these, 37 are in ICU and one patient is on ventilator support. The number of patients being treated at LNJP is much higher than other dedicated Covid facilities in the capital.
Multiple doctors said one of the reasons contributing to their fears is an order issued by the Delhi government in the second week of April, which called for all the resident doctors of LNJP’s 2019-22 batch to be deployed on Covid duty in all the districts of Delhi.
“From the very beginning, we were apprehensive about a shortage of medical professionals following this Delhi government order,” one doctor said, on the condition of anonymity.
Fuelling their concerns is a directive from the MCI, India’s medical education watchdog, that all colleges conduct their MD-MS examinations by 30 June. The LNJP Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) said about 150 senior residents will have to appear for this exam, which will further lower the staff strength.
Another factor weakening their strength, doctors said, is Covid infection among staff. Thirty-one doctors and 30 nurses of the hospital, LNJP sources said, have been identified as Covid-positive so far. Their apprehensions stand magnified in light of a change in the quarantine policy for health workers introduced on 18 May.
Earlier, LNJP RDA president Dr Parv Mittal said, healthcare workers worked on rotation, performing Covid-19 duty followed by a 14-day quarantine period (the incubation period of the virus, which manifests in symptoms in 14 days). “Now, only the high-risk healthcare workers are given quarantine. This is not right. Low-risk healthcare workers should also be given the quarantine as everyone faces equal danger from coronavirus,” he added.
Mittal as well as his colleagues said the factors together placed the hospital in a precarious situation.
“Now, even the hospital’s director has become a victim of the growing number of Covid infections among the health workers here. (If this continues) we may be staring at a severe shortage of health workers in LNJP,” he told ThePrint.
The LNJP RDA had written a letter to medical director Kumar on 27 May to highlight their concerns over the upcoming exams and the impending severe shortage of health workers. Among other things, they had urged the administration to call back the 110 resident doctors of the 2019-22 batch while their seniors were busy with the exams.
Speaking to ThePrint, medical director Pandey said he was confident there will be no shortage, even as he acknowledged that the exams should not have been held now.
“Right now, even the UPSC has stopped conducting examinations. All the schools and colleges are closed There is no examination being conducted anywhere. In such a situation, MD-MS exams should not have been announced.”
However, he said the resident doctors who have been listed as off-duty and given 15 days’ leave for exam preparations will be done with their exams by the end of this month. There will be no shortage of staff even during the extreme phase of Covid-19 infection, he added.
This report has been updated to correct the spelling of LNJP RDA president Dr Parv Mittal and reflect a reported increase in the number of infected staff at the hospital.
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