Healthcare workers not acquiring infection from hospitals: Government

The submission was made by the Health and Family Welfare Department before a division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice Anita Sumanth on Tuesday, in response to a plea citing shortage of PPEs resulting in doctors and paramedics getting infected.

The department submitted that special attention was paid for procurement of protective gears for healthcare workers, and the Tamil Nadu Medical Service Corporation Limited was issuing nearly 15,000 PPEs, including N95 masks, surgical masks and gloves, per day to all government hospitals. The PPE was for one-time use only (six hours). On request, additional PPEs were given to healthcare workers between their duty time without any restrictions.

The counter added that the duty roster for medical officers, staff nurses and para medical staff and sanitary workers in COVID wards was six hours per shift.

However, in spite of all precautionary efforts and special care given to the frontline health workers, some of them tested positive. The reason could not be attributed to hospital-acquired and the possibility of other sources could not be ruled out, the counter said.

But listing out the cases of health workers and police personnel testing positive, petitioner S Jimraj Milton said the PPE issued by the government was surgical apron meant for use by the doctors and other paramedical staff at the time of surgeries. The PPE kits were not as per WHO and ICMR norms, he alleged, adding that the status report had not provided their distribution status and the reason why doctors were getting infected.

In a supporting affidavit, Dr GR Ravindranath stated that the health workers were provided poor quality PPE instead of the gear prescribed by the WHO, and sought to constitute special committee of IAS officials, social workers, legal service authority (Grievance Redressal Cell) to know the exact problem faced by doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and other frontline workers.

After the government counsel sought time to respond to the allegations, the bench posted the plea after a week for further hearing.