Ludhiana civil hospital’s senior medical officer, two doctors contract Covid-19

District epidemiologist Dr Ramesh Bhagat said the three doctors had been isolated as per protocol and their health was being monitored

Civil hospital’s senior medical officer (SMO) Dr Hitinder Kaur and two internal medicine specialists, Dr Baldeep Singh and Dr Jasdeep Singh, tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday.

Currently, there are 126 Covid patients in the hospital, 12 of them in the ICU. (HT File Photo)

Dr Hitinder, who is also in-charge of the hospital’s Covid unit, and the two doctors had been attending to positive patients, it is learnt. Currently, the hospital’s ICU is operating at full capacity with all 16 beds occupied and another 89 patients have mild to moderate symptoms (Level 2).

District epidemiologist Dr Ramesh Bhagat said the three doctors had been isolated as per protocol and their health was being monitored.

In their absence, the health department has deployed three internal medicine specialists from other districts for 15 days. They include Dr Ranbir Singh from Anandpur Sahib, Dr Sarika from Ropar and Dr Rupinder Kaur from Faridkot.

Civil hospital’s only other in-house internal medicine specialist, Dr Amandeep Kaur, also returned to duty on Thursday after leave for Covid-related fatigue.

Currently, the hospital has 50 medical staff, who have been working in three shifts at the emergency, triage, trauma, male isolation, female isolation and ICU wings. Among them, five nurses are recuperating from the virus, and two doctors are on sick and maternity leave.