Around 115 budding doctors and healthcare professionals from two major government hospitals in Telangana tested COVID positive on Tuesday.All of them have only mild infection and will be under isolation for seven days. Senior officials said that a cluster of cases were expected as Omicron is highly transmissible and the doctors are in frontline.
At least 79 MBBS students, house surgeons, Post Graduates and faculty from Osmania Medical College (OMC) tested positive for the infection till Tuesday evening. And 36 MBBS and PG students from Gandhi Medical College too were detected with the infection.
Senior doctors and junior doctors from Osmania General Hospital said that the 79 healthcare professionals from OMC were isolated either at their homes or at the college hostel. “The 79 cases are among 35 house surgeons, 19 MBBS students, 23 PGs, two faculty members,” said the doctors.
OMC Principal P Shashikala said the students who couldn’t go home from the hostel were provided with single room accommodation for isolation. The tests were conducted on those who have symptoms.
Apart from senior doctors, PGs and MBBS students too provide medical services. Being in the frontline of health services, they have to attend both COVID and non-COVID patients and are at risk of contracting the infection.
While there is transparency about COVID cases among doctors and students of government hospitals and care is taken to ensure uniterrupted medical services, corporate hospitals are cautious about information leaking out due to the fear of patients shunning their establishments.
