Docs to urge Ministry to keep track of infection among healthcare workers

<br>A source on the condition of not disclosing the name of the hospital, told IANS that the doctors’ association is going to write to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to keep such data for the purpose of transparency and better training management.

“There are reports almost every day that a number of doctors and healthcare workers are infected with the COVID-19, but there is no official data. The Health Ministry or any government agency has not confirmed existence of such data,” the source told IANS, adding, “this creates panic among healthcare workers.

In many countries such as Italy, US and China, they have separate data for the number of healthcare workers affected by the disease.

“Hygiene, PPEs and sanitisers are not new for the medical community — we have been using them even before this pandemic. But if the doctors are still getting infected, that means either some of them are not following hygiene and distancing measures properly or they lack good quality personal protective equipment (PPE) or, maybe, they are not using them properly,” the source said.

“Therefore it is very important to address the issue by a reliable source of information. The ministry can keep it without making it public, but it should track the data on healthcare workers”.

He also said that the data may help in streamlining the training better.

The Health Ministry, when asked on the number of healthcare workers infected with COVID-19, had earlier said that for them, there was no difference between an ordinary person or a healthcare worker getting infected by coronavirus.

“For us a patient of COVID-19 is a patient, be it an ordinary person or a healthcare worker — we don’t differentiate,” a Health Ministry official had said earlier during a press briefing.

(Sfoorti Mishra can be contacted at sfoorti.m@ians.in)

—IANS<br>sfm/prs<br>