Bengaluru: 60 frontline warriors in city hospital test Coronavirus positive

Bengaluru: About 60 healthcare warriors of a private hospital in the city's upscale eastern suburb tested Covid positive despite wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), an official said on Thursday.

"About 60 staffers comprising doctors, nurses, paramedics and attendants tested positive for the virus since mid-June though they have been wearing PPE and taking precautions," Chinmaya Mission Hospital (CMH) executive Vinay Kumar told IANS here.

The 180-bed CMH is a designated hospital for treating Covid patients, with 50 per cent of its capacity for use by the state government for such positive cases.

"About 40 of our affected staff recovered, while 15 are under home quarantine and 5 are under treatment though all have been asymptomatic," said Kumar.

Though the hospital has been following the standard operating procedures and guidelines of the state health department for protecting its 700 employees, 60 of them were infected by the virus for various reasons.

"As we have no control over our staffers when they are not on duty, it is difficult to say where and when they would have contracted the infection as they are screened before entering the hospital wearing the PPE," Kumar said. About 130 other employees of the hospital who were the primary contacts of the infected staffers were also tested using the RT-PCR method and were told to go into self isolation. According to the hospital's director U. Sudhir, of the affected staffers, nurses were more than doctors and para-medics. Other employees such as attendants, technicians and ward boys also tested positive though asymptomatic.

"As no staff quarters or additional rooms for quarantining the infected were available in the hospital premises, they were told to stay home isolated till they recovered," Kumar added.