PPE Mustn't Be Used By Everyone: Health Ministry To Doctors

Publish On: 05 Apr, 2020 04:26 PM | Updated   |   Madhurima  

NEW DELHI: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday visited AIIMS' dedicated centre for COVID19 in Haryana's Jhajjar. The Minister spoke to the medical staff and took stock of preparedness over COVID-19.

"Don't compromise on protection in the quarantine centre. However, everyone needn't use PPE," Vardhan told doctors.

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"AIIMS has enough PPE material. Everything includes a guideline. Everyone shouldn't use PPE. Once we work in hospitals as a routine, not everyone uses PPE," said the Minister.

The dedicated block for treatment of COVID in Jhajjar has been established on the fifth floor of the hospital block which was for cancer patients earlier. The cancer patients are now admitted on the bottom-most floor and on the fifth floor, COVID patients are admitted.

It has 40 normal beds and 25 ICU beds. Only 7 patients are currently admitted during this block and none of them is in ICU or ventilator, all of them in the ward, the doctors told Vardhan.

The hospital has the capacity of 300 patients of which only 50 per cent capacity has been utilised to this point.

The medical staff also informed the Health Minister that 162 patients admitted to the hospital are stable. They told him that just one casualty has been reported since the centre was operational. The person was among the Nizamuddin Markaz group and had comorbidity.

The doctors informed the minister that 28 people from Tablighi Jamaat connection have tested negative.

The Minister asked the doctors to let them quarantined for 14 days and repeat the test as per the protocol.

"There isn't any question of discharging them who have come from particular contact history," said the minister.

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The doctors also told the Minister that there's a communication problem with Nizamuddin Markaz people as they do not know English or Hindi, a couple of of them are from Malaysia and Thailand. Out of the total 155 patients admitted in AIIMS Jhajjar, there are 121 positive cases of coronavirus. The overall capacity of the hospital is 300 beds.