Mumbai: In a bid to avoid further spread of coronavirus, local clinics are cutting short their working hours. They claim that they have been asked to operate the clinics "on their own risk."
As a result, many local clinics have preferred to shut down while those functioning are working only for two hours, one each in morning and night time.
This would obviously have a direct impact on the civic hospitals as patients will now visit such hospitals to get treated.
Notably, these clinics were putting in extra hours till last week and many of them worked at least two hours extra, both in morning and night.
This extra work was because of patients thronging up at local clinics for even mild cold and fever. "Till last week, we were getting more and more patients. I used to shut the clinic at least ta hours later than the usual timings," said Dr Ashok Pawar, a general physician.
"But now since there has been a surge in coronavirus cases, we are instructed to work for limited hours. This, the authorities said, would ensure that crowds dont get formed in our clinic, which is risky for transmission of the deadly virus," Dr Pawar added.
According to Dr Pawar, local doctors were being visited by people as the feared of the virus. "Even a slightest fever led to fear and they landed up in the clinics as they were scared of being infected by the virus. We had to make them understand that they aren't running a risk of exposing to the virus," Dr Pawar pointed out.
But now with rising number of positive cases, local clinics have gone on a back foot. "We are told to run the clinics on our own risks. Because, if clinics would remain open people will continue to visit in huge numbers," said Dr Vaishali Jain, a gynecologist.
"If our clinics would continue to be open then there will be people who would just come out to get rid of the mandatory isolation and give an excuse of visiting the doctor. This again would increase risk of community transmission," Dr Jain added.
