Even as resident doctors from Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI) are on a protest demanding complete functioning of non-COVID-19 care at the institute, officials from the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) said the resumption of non-COVID-19 services will be further delayed due to logistic issues.
The DME had earlier announced that non-COVID-19 care will resume in BMCRI from December 1.
“While non-COVID-19 care has begun at all BMCRI-affiliated hospitals (Vani Vilas, PMSSY, Minto and Institute of Nephro Urology), it is getting delayed at Victoria Hospital owing to logistics. As the facility had been converted into a dedicated COVID-29 care one, no maintenance work had been carried out in the last nine months. We shifted the existing COVID-19 patients from Trauma and Emergency Care Centre (TECC) to the Tower Block in Victoria Hospital on Monday to carry out maintenance work at TECC,” said P.G. Girish, Director of Medical Education.
He said the patients would be shifted back to TECC after the maintenance work and following this, Tower Block and other wings of the hospital would be cleaned and fumigated for non-COVID-19 care.
“Although we had planned to resume services from December 1, the process is getting delayed. However, medical students are being posted in other hospitals including Bowring, Lady Curzon Medical College and Broadway hospitals,” the doctor said, refusing to commit on the next date from when services would resume.
Fear of second wave?
Sources said the Medical Education Department was a little apprehensive about resuming non-COVID-19 care in the wake of an imminent second wave. “With experts warning that the second wave will be severe, we are worried if there will be an influx of COVID-19 patients. We will have to wait and watch,” another senior official said. However, the Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors said medical students were losing out on their practical classes due to the delay.
“The hospital once had a staggering 3,000 outpatients a day and 75-100 surgeries were being conducted. But surgeons here have not touched the scalpel in the last nine months. We are at the risk of becoming unskilled doctors,” KARD president Dayanand Sagar said.
