Hyderabad: Ayurveda students seek shifting of Covid wards

Hyderabad: The PG students working in Dr BRKR Govt Ayurvedic Medical Hospital in SR Nagar are concerned over the facility being turned into an isolation ward for COVID-19 positive patients.

Currently, 100 PG doctors are performing COVID-19 level-1 duties, which is limited to testing patients and referring the Covid positive patients to Gandhi Hospital. However, on Monday the government decided to turn the facility into an isolation ward for Covid-19 patients. Currently, there are 26 corona positive patients admitted in two wards A and B out of 10 wards (A – J) set up in the 200-bedded hospital.

A PG scholar said on condition of anonymity that, "Earlier, we were assigned level-1 duties where we had to test patients and if we found someone positive then we referred them to Gandhi. Now on Monday the government decided to turn it into a level two facility where positive patients will be kept in isolation for 18 days."

"For Ayurvedic doctors performing level-1 duties is not an issue, but we don't have proper training or qualification to attend to positive cases. A few of our PG doctors met the Health Minister today and requested him to shift the isolation wards. The Minister said he will try to shift the wards to some other place soon. But if the government fails to initiate shifting of the isolation ward then the doctors will completely discontinue the duties."

The Principal of Dr BRKR Govt Ayurvedic Medical College, M Surya Prakash, said, "Since Tuesday morning, a few PG doctors are coming for duties. We have not received any update regarding the shifting of the facility from the government yet."