CMCH staff denied isolation, safety gears

The teachers, doctors, officers and employees of Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) will not be able to go for isolation even after coming in contact with Covid-19 patients.

Apart from this, no one will be provided safety equipment from the college, CMCH authorities have said issuing five urgent instructions for the management of Covid-19 in the hospital.

As per the instructions, the teachers, physicians, officers and staff who will test Covid-19 positive will only have the opportunity to stay in isolation or at hospital for 10 days.

None of the teachers, doctors, officers-employees who will come in contact with Covid-19 positive patients will be allowed to go through any kind of isolation. If anyone goes, they will be considered absent.

All those teachers, doctors, officers and employees who are staying in a flat or house with Covid-19 positive people and even if that flat or house is locked down, they have to be taken out of the lockdown and present in their respective workplaces.

All teachers, doctors, officers and employees have to ensure attendance at work from 8 am to 2.30 pm as per office schedule.

No protection material will be provided from CMCH.

CMCH Principal Mohammad Shamim Hasan was called more than once on Saturday afternoon but his phone was found switched off. Although the principal's phone was connected at around 6 pm, he did not receive the call.

Teachers, physicians, officials and employees have expressed their resentment after the instructions were issued in an order signed by the CMCH principal.

Besides, the doctors' organizations have demanded immediate repeal of the inhumane instructions.

Health workers in CMCH said the authorities were treating them inhumanely when they were serving people risking their own lives. They are being pushed to death.

A teacher, preferring anonymity, has told The Business Standard that the administration is sending everyone who comes in contact with coronavirus-infected people to isolation and everything is being locked down.

But according to the CMCH instructions, the teachers, doctors, officers and employees will not be able to go for isolation even if they come in contact with the victim. It is inhumane.

He added that teachers, doctors, officials and employees are performing their responsibilities amid risk of infection. It is therefore the responsibility of the college authorities to ensure their safety. But the directive says there is no scope for providing safety materials.

On the other hand, if isolation is not provided even after coming in contact with the infected, the health workers will be a source of infection, experts said.

A teacher in the Department of Medicine told The Business Standard that the maintenance of health guidelines is important to prevent coronavirus infection. Such directives would pose a threat to public health.

Meanwhile, the doctors' associations have expressed their resentment against issuance of the directive.

Swadhinata Chikitsak Parishad's Orgasizing Secretary and Co-ordinator of the committee ANM Minhazur Rahman said the instructions would put pressure on the physicians.

Scientifically, isolation has been suggested when a doctor comes in contact with a patient and the principal cannot go against it, he said.