JNIMS doctors potential spreaders of Covid
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 13 2021: The faculty members, and senior and junior residents of Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS), Porompat have expressed concern over the possibility of contracting and spreading the virulent coronavirus due to the existing duty roster system.

According to a report, as per the protocol of the state health department, doctors on duty at Covid Care Centre (CCCs) and Covid hospitals must stay in isolation for seven days after every 6-7 days of Covid duty, following which they should undergo a Covid test.

If negative, they then must stay in isolation for another 7 days before returning to duty.

However, the roster system currently in place at JNIMS hospital is in complete contradiction to the protocol with the doctors returning to general duty the next after completing 6 days of Covid-duty without any home isolation or test.

As such, concerns have been raised over the doctors possibly contracting and spreading the virus amongst the patients.

The report further conveyed that senior and junior resident doctors are mostly assigned the Covid duty, with the junior doctors being the ones physically monitoring the patients.

The senior doctors attend to the patients if the condition happened to be serious.

However, the said doctors are immediately assigned duty to the general ward after completing 6 days of Covid duty.

Speaking to The People's Chronicle in this regard, an official of JNIMS said that the doctors of the institute are assigned Covid duty for 6 days, following which they are isolated for 3 days by the head of departments concerned.

If the doctors do not exhibit any symptoms during the 3-day period, they are assigned to general duty without undergoing any tests.

Aside from the official's statement being in contradiction to the prevailing duty roster system, the big question is whether a person in contact with a Covid case could be considered safe if he/she shows no symptoms for 3 days.

Thus, by assigning general duty to Covid doctors just on the basis of being asymptomatic could lead to the spread of the virus among general patients.

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