Kin of only 64 doctors who died of Covid-19 claimed insurance, says govt as IMA places the number of deaths at 400

Families of only 64 doctors have claimed the benefits of government’s special Rs 50 lakh Covid-19 insurance package though India’s biggest body of doctors asserted that nearly 400 doctors perished in the pandemic.

The discrepancy in the number of doctors killed by Covid-19 showed the government’s “indifference to the sacrifice of (private) doctors and health care workers”, the Indian Medical Association said in a statement.

Responding to a question in the Parliament on Friday, the Union Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey said families of only 64 doctors applied for the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Insurance package along with 91 healthcare workers.

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An IMA list dated September 16 mentioned the names of 382 doctors who died due to Covid-19 infection. A day later (Sept 17), Trinamool Congress MP and a former IMA office-bearer Santanu Sen said in the Rajya Sabha that 389 doctors were killed in the epidemic.

The Union Health Ministry, however, informed the House that no list of health care workers died in the epidemic was maintained at the central level.

Read: Data on health workers infected or those who died during Covid-19 duty not maintained at central level: Govt

“No nation has lost as many doctors and health care workers like India. Doctors suffer four times more mortality than an ordinary citizen and private practitioners suffer eight times mortality on the same scale. To feign that this information doesn’t merit the attention of the nation is abominable,” the IMA said.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organisation too flagged the higher risks taken by doctors and other healthcare workers.

“While health workers represent less than 3% of the population in the large majority of countries and less than 2% in almost all low-and middle-income countries, around 14% of Covid-19 cases reported to WHO are among health workers,” said the world body.

In addition to physical risks, the pandemic has placed extraordinary levels of psychological stress on health workers exposed to high-demand settings for long hours, living in constant fear of disease exposure while separated from family and facing social stigmatization.

In the Rajya Sabha, Sen said 573 healthcare workers died in the last eight months due to the pandemic. The government list presented in the same House showed a figure of only 155 displaying the chasm between the private and government healthcare services.

“If the government doesn’t maintain the statistics of the total number of doctors and health care workers infected by Covid-19 and the statistics of how many of them sacrificed their lives due to the pandemic, it loses the moral authority to administer the Epidemic Act 1897 and the Disaster Management Act. This also exposes the hypocrisy of calling them corona warriors on one hand and denying them and their families the status and benefits of martyrdom,” noted the IMA.