UP books rooms in luxury hotels for medical staff

Lucknow: Authorities on Monday booked rooms in four luxury hotels in Lucknow for doctors, nurses and other medical staff looking after coronavirus (Covid-19) patients in the city, citing their proximity to the hospitals they are working in.

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News agency Press Trust of India quoted Lucknow divisional commissioner Mukesh Meshram saying that the medical staff will not be allowed to go home and will stay in these hotels.

District magistrate Abhishek Prakash said the medical staff of the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute involved in treating the Covid-19 partients would put up in Hyatt Regency and Fairfield by Marriott as they are close to the hospital.

Similarly, the medical staff working in the isolation ward of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences will stay at The Piccadily and Lemon Tree Hotel for the same reason, he said.

An employee of Fairfield by Marriott, who did not wish to be named, said, “The development took place only this [Monday] morning and we are yet to get further instructions from the administration.”

Resident Doctors Association of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi last week said some doctors had been forcefully evicted by their landlords over the Covid-19 infection fears, and prompted the government to issue orders saying penal action would be taken against those evicting doctors.

The Lucknow administration has also taken over an exhibition centre, an auditorium and the Haj House to set up quarantine centres and to shelter migrant workers entering the state capital, the district magistrate said.

“We have acquired several establishments, including private ones, in order to carry out relief work at ease and to assist those who are engaged in relief operations. Some of the establishments would be transformed into makeshift quarantine centres,” he said.