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After two months, Covid-19 doctors to get hotel accommodation in Pune
We have enough lodging facilities in private hotels and government rest houses with us and I have instructed our officers to provide them to the doctors, says Pune municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad
Pune municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad on Thursday, promptly assured hotel accommodation for civic doctors attending patients affected with Sars-cov-2 virus which causes the Covid-19 (coronavirus) infection when asked about a complaint from a team of doctors. He said ten rooms have been sanctioned for doctors at the government’s VIP guest house.
On May 12, a team of 12 doctors serving at the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) Dr Naidu Contagious Diseases Hospital, wrote to municipal commissioner Gaikwad and state chief secretary Ajoy Mehta with a list of grievances that needed to be addressed. One of the main grievances of the doctors was the absence of hotel accommodation, forcing them to go home to their families and risk infecting them.
Pune city is among the Covid-19 red zone districts in the country with 163 deaths and 2,800 positive cases as of May 13.
When asked about this letter and the grievances raised by the doctors, Gaikwad said he had already issued instructions long back, but apparently they had not been implemented by the lower staff.
“We have enough lodging facilities in private hotels and government rest houses with us and I have instructed our officers to provide them to the doctors. We had not received any requests from Naidu Hospital. I have now asked the Naidu hospital administration to provide the list of the doctors and medical staff who wish to avail of these facilities,” Gaikwad said.
The doctors spoke about the serious problems they were facing because of the lack of alternate accommodation for them. One of the doctors on condition of anonymity said that he was not being allowed to use the lift in his housing society and had to climb up many floors using the stairs, after a hard day’s work.
“After reaching my flat, I remove my clothes in the public area outside the door itself and then enter the house and go straight to the bathroom for a hot water bath,” the doctor said.
Another doctor on condition of anonymity said that he had to commute quite a distance from the hospital to his residence and added to this was the risk of infecting his family members which needed to be avoided as was being done for other doctors treating Covid-19 patients.
The doctors in their letter said they had been working for the last two months at a stretch even though they were expected to work for 21 days and then spend seven days in quarantine. They pointed out that the district administration had made lodging arrangements for doctors from the Sassoon General Hospital. The same facility should be extended to them.
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