15 persons working at CATS ambulance call centre test Covid positive

The positive patients have been admitted to Lok Nayak, Rajiv Gandhi Superspeciality, AIIMS Jhajjar and RML hospitals.

At least 15 people working in the control room of Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) Ambulance have tested positive for Covid-19 infection in Delhi on Friday night. The control room, however, continues to function, with around 25 people responding to calls for ambulances from across the national capital.

The samples of the operators were collected four days ago, and the reports returned positive for 15 on Friday night (Photo by Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)

The samples of the operators were collected four days ago, and the reports returned positive for 15 on Friday night. “All operators working in one shift at the call centre have tested positive, the test reports of the remaining staff are awaited,” an official from East Delhi’s district office said.

The positive patients have been admitted to Lok Nayak, Rajiv Gandhi Superspeciality, AIIMS Jhajjar and RML hospitals. Apart from the ‘102’ number for ambulance services, the Delhi government has issued four other cellphone numbers on Friday – 7291000071, 7291000078, 7291000093, 7291000094.

“One of the operators had fever for a couple of days and his condition is serious. He has been rushed to RML hospital, where he has been put on ventilator support. Yet, this call centre office hasn’t been sealed. Some offices are being closed even if a single Covid-19 case is reported. How do we know that we would not get the infection? So many of us sit in the same office, share the same computers, there is always the possibility of an infection,” one of the CATS operators said, on condition of anonymity.

The reports of around 50 other employees are still pending. The modern control room in Laxmi Nagar was set up in 2015 when the Delhi government launched the ‘Home to Hospital Care Scheme’ to provide free ambulance service for all medical emergencies. Earlier, the services were restricted to accident cases and deliveries.

The government-run service has around 151 ambulances across the city, with 60 being deputed for transporting Covid-19 positive or suspected cases.

The infection has reached the doors of front-line warriors in the city, with the staff at the office of east district’s chief district medical officer being put under quarantine after one of them tested positive for the infection three days ago. The team is responsible for surveillance of Covid-19 positive and suspected cases in the district.

Over 300 health care workers and hospital staff have tested positive for Covid-19 in the city so far. At Jahangirpuri’s Babu Jagjivan Ram hospital, at least 75 hospital staff tested positive for the infection, which led to the government closing the 100-bed hospital.

Around 45 staff members at Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital also tested positive for Covid-19. Delhi State Cancer Institute reported its first cluster of infections in the beginning of April. At least 26 hospital staff have tested positive for the infection. Four patients also tested positive for Covid-19 and two of them succumbed to the illness.

Almost all health care workers who tested positive were from non-Covid hospitals or non-Covid areas of hospitals.

The Delhi government suspended a controversial order soon after issuing it on Friday in which it had demanded that all health care workers who test positive or come in contact with positive cases give a written explanation as to how that happened despite them following guidelines.