Mumbai Thirty-six healthcare providers, including five doctors, at Jaslok Hospital tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday. This brings the total number of those infected at the hospital to 57, making it a hotspot.
All of the infected have been isolated and two doctors are under observation in the hospital ICU. Health officials said all of these cases were asymptomatic and the hospital continues to be shut, only accepting emergency patients.
As per sources, the hospital was likely to have resumed operations from April 20 but the management decided to test all staffers yet again before doing so.
In the second round of testing, around 31 nurses and five doctors were found positive, all of them being asymptomatic. Their health is being monitored, said the sources. Among the five doctors infected are the registrars of medicine and pulmonology, a junior and a senior anaesthetist and a junior radiologist.
Last month, 21 nurses at the hospital had tested positive, following which the hospital authorities had collected swab samples of 100 staff and quarantined them at a hostel in Ballard Pier.
Although most of the staff had tested negative they were compulsorily quarantined for 14 days. One of the nurses claimed the hospital authorities did not show them their reports.
Most nurses are from Kerala and are constantly being called by their worried families and friends. "On Friday, we were given a computerised list of names of staff who had tested positive. No reports were handed over. Those who tested positive were advised to continue staying in the hostel, with an extension of the quarantine," she said.
Disturbing enough as that is, nurses have also alleged that the hospital administration has called back some nurses to work despite the latter not having completed the required time in quarantine.
A hospital spokesperson said, since the first positive case had emerged, Jaslok had quarantined the staff at Peregrine hotel near Chhatrapati Shivaji Marg Terminus.
The BMC had declared the hostel a containment zone. All the isolated staff were tested subsequently and found negative. As a precautionary measure, Jaslok suspended operations after the first case was reported.
“Positive cases have come from the quarantined staff in the hostel, who were tested again before they could resume work. This second round of swab testing showed that some of the staff were positive and asymptomatic.
We are taking precautions to ensure the safety of our staff and patients. We have tested over 1, 600 of our staff, nurses and doctors and adopted precautionary measures to ensure their safety,” according to the spokesperson.
