30 Nurses, Docs Test COVID-19 Positive, Wockhardt Hospital Sealed

Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital has been declared a containment zone, all hospital staff under observation.

Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital, on Monday, 6 April, was sealed and declared a containment zone after at least 30 staff members, including doctors and nurses, tested positive for COVID-19.

The first coronavirus case reported by a staff member in the hospital can be traced back to 28 March when a 70-year-old-man, who was a heart attack patient and had shown no initial COVID-19 symptoms, had been admitted. However, over the next few days, two nurses who tended to him tested positive. The patient too tested positive for coronavirus.

Since then, at least 26 nurses and three doctors have tested positive for COVID-19. Sources in BMC said those who have tested positive are being treated in the hospital. Meanwhile, tests reports for about 265 other staff members are awaited. They have been quarantined till then.

"It is unfortunate that such a big cluster of cases have come from a medical facility. They should have taken precautions," Additional Municipal Commissioner, Suresh Kakani, told News18.

‘Inadequate PPE’s for Nurses’

Meanwhile, unions for nurses, like United Nurses Association (UNA) and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan Mumbai, wrote to the BMC commissioner and CM Uddhav Thackeray about the condition of nurses tending to COVID-19 patients in Maharashtra.

Citing inadequate supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) given to nurses, the groups wrote,

“The supply and availability of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for nursing staff is not adequate. Given the hierarchy in the medical profession, nurses are undervalued and under supported and do not get the attention they require as frontline workers. Out of all the staff members they are usually the ones exposed to patients the longest.”

The group highlighted that adequate precautions for infection-control and triage are not being taken by hospitals, which is putting the safety of nurses at risk. This chalks up to negligence of the hospital management.

“Many nurses who are working in hospitals providing treatment and care for COVID patients are living at home and using public transport to commute between their homes and the hospital. Unless adequately protected from the infection, they could become carriers of coronavirus and unknowingly spread it among the community,” said the letter.

In a statement to ANI, Wockhardt hospital said, “Several of our healthcare professionals tested positive for COVID-19 at South Mumbai facility. The source of the infection is identified as a 70-year-old patient who was admitted on 17 March for a cardiac emergency. Later, the patient tested positive for COVID-19.”

The hospital further added,

“Our colleague nurses and the doctors identified as COVID-19 positive are presently being treated. The hospital is currently declared containment zone by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and we are closely working with the authorities” 

Wockhardt hospital to ANI