Kolkata: Covid, non-Covid balance on hospitals’ Puja roster – Times of India

KOLKATA: Several private hospitals in Kolkata will be reverting to their pre-pandemic roster for doctors and nurses in non-Covid wards during the festive days next week. At Covid wards, however, presence of the existing strength of personnel will continue even as some have decided to extend their Covid units and be ready to deploy more health workers at a short notice in case there is a spurt.
While Peerless Hospital will continue to depute six consultants, at least eight nurses and 10 junior doctors at its Covid ward that now has just 21 admitted it will return to its 2019 roster for the rest of the wards. “We have very few planned surgeries or admissions during the Pujas, which allows us to have a smaller workforce. Since there has been no spurt in Covid numbers so far, we expect the trend to continue during the Pujas.

But we will not reduce the workforce at the ward,” said Peerless Hospital CEO Sudipta Mitra. Last Puja, Peerless had to cancel doctors’ leaves since it had more 100 Covid patients.
RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) , too, will be reverting to its pre-pandemic roster for doctors and nurses. But it will continue to have more than the usual number of doctors and nurses at the Covid ward since cases have increased slightly, according to RTIICS zonal director R Venkatesh.
“We have 47 Covid beds with an occupancy of 32, with 16 critical care patients. If we see a steady rise in cases, we will add more beds as we have the infrastructure ready. For non-Covid wards, though, we will return to the pre-pandemic roster,” said Venkatesh.
Medica Superspecialty Hospital has already revived its pre-pandemic roster for non-Covid wards. “We have just 26 Covid patients now. Admissions will drop sharply during the Puja days, so we will allow Puja leaves to our doctors and nurses. We will call them back in case there’s an unexpected spurt either in Covid or non-Covid admissions,” said Medica chairperson Alok Roy.
AMRI Hospitals will not alter its schedule for doctors at non-Covid wards, though. “We will stick to last year’s routine and have a strong presence of health workers across wards. While the number of non-Covid patients could drop, we will accommodate more Covid patients in case there is a spurt,” said AMRI CEO Rupak Barua.
Ruby Hospital, too, has decided against reviving its 2019 roster. Like AMRI, it will add more Covid beds and will stick to its usual roster for health workers during the festival. “We will have 25 Covid beds across two wards, including several critical care ones. There has been a marginal spurt in Covid admissions over the last few days. So, we are not taking it easy,” said Ruby general manager (operations) Subhashish Datta.