High quality kits for doctors, cheap ones for us: Kasturba Hosp staffers

Despite two Class 4 employees contracting the Covid-19 infection, Kasturba Hospital, the city’s central coronavirus treatment facility, is providing either the HIV

Despite two Class 4 employees contracting the Covid-19 infection, Kasturba Hospital, the city’s central coronavirus treatment facility, is providing either the HIV personal protective equipment (PPE) or poor quality donated kits to the cleaning staff, staffers have alleged, claiming high quality Covid-19 PPEs are given only to the doctors and nurses.

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At least 300 staffers held a protest on the hospital premises on Monday evening. The hospital has allegedly served a notice to a few staffers for raising their voice against the discrimination. Dr Chandrashekhar Pawar, medical superintendent of the hospital, refuted the allegations: “We are providing adequate PPE to all staffers as per the protocol.”

Sars-Cov-2, the virus causing Covid-19, is extremely infectious. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), any staff member who works in close contact with Covid-19 patients in isolation wards has to wear PPE to curb any possible transmission of the infection. “We are either provided with the old HIV PPE or donated kits which are of poor quality. These kits don’t even cover the whole body. The upper body cover is too thin to stop any possible contact of the virus to the skin. All doctors and nurses are given proper high quality PPE,” alleged a staffer.

Class IV employees carry patients on a daily basis, feed them and regularly clean the seriously ill patients and their beds. They also have to carry the bodies of those who have succumbed to the infection. “When a patient died around 3.30am on Saturday, our staff had to carry the body without head masks and upper body cover. When he asked a nurse for it, she said, “It wasn’t needed”. She also threatened to issue a memo,” said another staffer.

With the fear of spreading the infection, staff members don’t even go to their quarters to meet their families. They sleep on vacant hospital beds or corners of the hospital. They spray themselves with disinfectants on days when they go home. “When I go home, I ask my family to wait outside and I go directly into the bathroom to take a bath with a disinfectant to kill any possible germs. I don’t even sleep in the same area as my family. They make my bed on the ground, while they sleep on beds,” said a staffer from the hospital.

One doctor from the hospital said that often people donate cheap kits as there are no quality checks. “PPE comes in a packet along with all needed requirements. We have often seen that N95 or head masks remain missing from the packets and the quality is extremely poor. The packages are given to Class 4 employees for their use,” said the doctor.

In ward number 30, which houses all serious patients, midwives have to feed patients water through steel glasses, which have to be cleaned and disinfected later. Raising the issue, one midwife said, “We have demanded a filter inside the ward with paper glasses, so that we don’t have to wash those glasses with bare hands which the hospital has promised to install.”

Pradeep Govind Narkar, secretary of Municipal Mazdoor Union, Mumbai, said, “The civic body is putting so many lives at risk by using shortage of PPE as an excuse. It is not the fault of the staff members that we don’t have enough PPEs. The government should have taken measures to address the issue beforehand. We spoke to the hospital authority on Monday and Dr Pawar has promised to provide PPE while disposing of the bodies.”

Last week, city mayor Kishori Pednekar visited the hospital after receiving several complaints about violation of safety rules.

Politician Kirti Somaiya sought an explanation from Dr Pawar on Tuesday. “As per my knowledge, 10 staffers are still kept quarantined at the hospital. The hospital is not only putting their lives at risk but this can lead to further spread of the infection,” he said.