The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has requested the Central and State governments to ensure that the COVID-19 duty of resident doctors should not exceed eight hours a day and seven days, after which there should be a quarantine of 10 to 14 days in the accommodation prescribed by the hospital. Also, there should be a provision for taking care of their mental health.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the IMA said that in the event of COVID-19 duty doctors becoming ill, they should be admitted to the respective hospital at the earliest, and in case of untimely death, the status of COVID-19 martyr and compensation as well as case-wise assistance should be arranged.
Around 2,000 doctors died in the second wave of COVID-19. The mortality rate in the country was around 1.5% among the general population and around 2-3% among the healthcare workers. According to this estimate, coronavirus occurred in about 1,00,000 doctors.
“Mortality in the third wave is expected to be low but the Omicron variant is 5.4 times more infectious than the Delta variant and due to the high exposure of healthcare workers to COVID-19 patients in clinics and hospitals, doctors are expected to have 5 to 10 times more infections than the general public,’’ the IMA stated.
In many big medical colleges/hospitals of the country, a large number of medical staff, especially doctors, have been found infected. The health infrastructure could crumble due to a shortage of sick doctors. “Safety of doctors from infection can be ensured to a great extent because doctors are the backbone of Indian health services in the pandemic,’’ it added.
