The second wave of Covid-19 has left everyone helpless. The health infrastructure is not up to the mark to meet the rising Covid-19 cases. There is a shortage of manpower in every part of the country. While the covid cases are on the rise, the manpower is lagging to cater to the needs of the patients.
There is an acute shortage of medical staff. The healthcare workers are already overburdened. To lower their stress, the medical workers requested the authorities to pass an order to deploy the final year students of the medical and nursing field. This will help the doctors to take care of patients more effectively.
As per the opinions of doctors and other staff members, the assistance by medical students will lower their burden. These students are capable of meeting the basic needs of patients. They can help in doing paperwork and even basic procedure like taking the temperature of patients timely.
Along with taking care of patients, the doctors and hospital staff need to do full documentation. This consumes a lot of precious time. This can easily be done by these students.
Bhote, CEO of Ruby Hall Clinic, stated that they have 500 beds available for Covid patients. But what they don’t have is medical staff to look out for these patients. This is not the time for looking for qualifications. At this time we need quantity and consume every resource possible.
He also said that the medical staff is already working overtime and their workload has increased by three to four times. But the availability of nurses is reduced to almost 50 percent. We witness a lot of brain drain in this sector too. Many nursing and medical staff leave the country for better wages.
CEO of Symbiosis University Hospital and Research Center, Natarajan, also expressed his views about the lack of medical staff. In ICU there is a ratio of 1:2 one nurse for two patients. While in wards, the ratio has reached 1:10. It is practically impossible for one nurse to cater to the needs of 10 patients at a time.
Nurses leaving the country for better jobs is one of the most common reasons for the shortage of medical staff. The government needs to take measures to reduce such instances.
The hospital authorities are appealing to deploy final-year students. Whereas the students are complaining about their academic losses due to covid-19 duty. Advisor of MARD, Prashant Munde, suggested recruiting each and every doctor and nurse registered in the state. Their data is readily available and can be asked to work during these unprecedented times.
The authorities are also concerned about the nursing staff being tested positive for the infection. It worsens the patient-nurse ratio. They also expressed an opinion against allowing the trained nurses to leave the country just for better wages when their own country is suffering.
