As Covid-19 cases rise, Delhi districts short of hands to manage crisis

A day after the Delhi government, in a first, deployed 110 postgraduate students of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) in every district, the state health department Monday said it will issue a similar directive to the University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS).

With most districts short of manpower to handle the ongoing activities to curb the spread of Covid-19 cases, the Delhi government has deployed over 13,742 booth level officials (BLOs) for surveillance and disinfection drives, and urged medical students to join various containment activities.

As on Monday, Delhi has 1,510 Covid-19 cases and 47 areas have been declared containment zones. (PTI file photo)

The government said the BLO deployment, a first in the country, would essentially cover each household in Delhi and conduct health checks.

A day after the Delhi government, in a first, deployed 110 postgraduate students of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) in every district, the state health department Monday said it will issue a similar directive to the University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS).

As on Monday, Delhi has 1,510 Covid-19 cases and 47 areas have been declared containment zones.

“We have provided 10 MAMC students to each district magistrate for carrying out activities they deem fit. The tasks may range from conducting tests to door-to-door health checks. Next, we are planning to rope in students of UCMS and will do so from more colleges,” a senior official of the state health department, on condition of anonymity, said.

Dr AK Jain, acting principal of UCMS, said, “Our students from pathology, anesthesiology, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, ENT, biochemistry and other departments will be deployed as and when the government order comes.”

Since Delhi has invoked the Disaster Management Act to fight Covid-19, the district magistrates lead the command chain in each of the city’s 11 districts. But now, with the increase in the number of cases and, consequently, the number of containment zones, several DMs told HT that manpower was going to be the biggest challenge in the coming days.

So far, most districts have been getting work done by reorganising their staff, and requesting local bodies and government departments to chip in, apart from deploying civil defence volunteers.

In New Delhi district, for example, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is not just carrying out sanitisation and quarantine activities but has also provided its entire health department staff to the district administration.

“Our area is smaller and, hence, our staff members are also fewer. But, the manpower requirement spiked when containment zones in our area increased from one to two. It also meant that we had to impose the lockdown strictly in areas neighbouring the containment zones and conduct extensive health checks. So on my personal request, the NDMC provided its entire staff of doctors, paramedics and helpers to us. That saved us,” Tanvi Garg, New Delhi district magistrate, said.

Data with the health department suggests that at least 5,900 accredited social health activists (ASHA) and over 1,270 auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) are currently deployed across districts to conduct door-to-door data collection which also includes health checks. Yet, the staff crunch pinched every district so much that the lieutenant-governor has now asked the health department to create a pool of retired medical professionals to augment resources.

At least, 7,700 civil defence volunteers (CDVs) are presently working in the city. Their jobs include providing food, doorstep delivery of essentials, helping the police enforce the lockdown, contact tracing and surveillance.

“Because there is so much happening simultaneously, the chief secretary, who is the chairperson of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, has appointed nine ‘incident commanders’ in every district. They are in addition to the subdivisional magistrates (SDMs). The incident commanders also have magisterial powers and they keep a track of the containment and surveillance strategies. This is overseen by the DM,” Sonalika Jiwani, SDM (Mehrauli), said.

Some districts such as New Delhi have even taken the help of professors and senior research fellows of community medicine and microbiology from prominent medical colleges in aiding and advising them on containment strategies.

Central zone DM Nidhi Srivastava said she got more doctors and health workers from Aruna Asaf Ali and Lok Nayak hospitals. “There is no official in my district who has not been assigned work. Still, we are short of hands and this is the situation in every district. So, officials are now being requisitioned from departments such as education, public works, finance and transport,” she said.

East Delhi DM AK Mishra said he had to warn of criminal action under the Disaster Management Act to an employee from a different department after he refused to report to work.

To further streamline manpower and optimise productivity, chief secretary Vijay Dev Monday asked all DMs to constitute multisectoral teams -- ‘Corona Foot Warriors Containment and Surveillance Team’ -- in their respective districts.

These teams will do field inspections to ensure compliance to lockdown rules, foot patrolling to cover every household to identify suspected Coivid-19 cases, keep health workers in the loop and ensure secure transportation of suspected patients.

“The team shall be led by a BL) and will comprise one ASHA or anganwadi worker, one CDV, one MCD sanitation worker and one Delhi Police constable. The team members shall make phone calls to various households in their jurisdiction to ensure the well-being of all in the family and availability of essential items. The residents will be advised to maintain social distancing, wear masks in case they have to step out,” read the chief secretary’s order.