Posing concerns to the pandemic fight in Kerala, doctors serving as Covid-19 nodal officers at the government medical colleges in the state relieved from the charge and a section of doctors launched an indefinite hunger strike to protest against the suspension of a doctor and two nurses in connection with a patient getting infested with maggots.
Efforts by the Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja and senior health department officials to pacify the doctors did not succeed as the doctors insisted on revoking the suspension, maintaining that the action against the health workers, who had been dedicatedly fighting against Covid-19, amounted to demoralising the health fraternity.
Anil Kumar, a 55-year-old Covid-19 patient at the Thiruvananthapuram medical college, was found to have maggot infested sores after being discharged. Nodal officer of the ward and two nurses on duty were suspended pending detailed probe.
Kerala Government Medical College Teachers' Association secretary Dr Nirmal Bhaskar told DH that one doctor and two nurses were handling up to 60 Covid-19 patients without the support of bystanders in each ward. In such a scenario such an unfortunate incident of a patient getting infested might have gone unnoticed.
The doctors and nurses were not trying to justify the incident. But such actions before detailed enquiry demoralised the health workers, who had been fighting Covid relentlessly over the past several months. It was in the view of Covid-19 that doctors were given the additional responsibility of nodal officer. But no additional manpower deployment was made, he pointed out.
Meanwhile, a police case was initiated against a section of doctors and nurses for carrying out the protest flouting the ban on gatherings of more than five persons imposed in the state under the Section 144 of CrPC given coronavirus spread.