The junior doctor claimed that those who have been exposed must be immediately quarantined but instead authorities asked them to continue on duty. (File photo: PTI)

Doctors at the Calcutta Medical College (CMC) Hospital, West Bengal's premier state-run institute have expressed concern over their safety after at least seven doctors working at the facility tested positive for Covid-19.

More than 200 junior doctors at CMC Hospital have written an open letter accusing the authorities of 'mismanagement' of Covid-19 suspects, making Asia's first medical college a 'hazardous zone for healthcare providers and patients'.

Junior doctors have now demanded mass testing of all frontline medical teams and proper isolation facility. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a junior doctor who signed the letter, told India Today that frontline doctors who were exposed to Covid-19 suspects have not been provided with N95 masks.

"People who are posted in the OPDs and other department are not given N95 masks at all. We have been told that N95 masks are in short supply so we have to put up with the surgical masks for now," the doctor claimed.

Raising an alarm, the 24-year-old doctor who has himself developed symptoms due to exposure, told India Today that when patients are coming into the emergency ward there was no proper separation of Covid-19 suspects from others.

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"Doctors who handle a new patient, in the initial hours when they come to the hospital are without any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). What happens is that the department with their own wisdom makes a clinical diagnosis of the disease but you cannot make such a diagnosis in case of Covid-19," the junior doctor said.

"But they say the patient is Covid-19 negative. Later, by the time the test is done and patient's result turned out to be positive. Three shifts of doctors along with nurses and staff have already been exposed to the patient," he said.

The MBBS intern claimed that those who have been exposed must be immediately quarantined but instead authorities asked them to continue on duty.

"The administration told us that unless we have a contact of ateast 15 minutes with the patient we won't be sent for quarantine. After repeated pleas, we were finally sent to a hotel after a delay of five days. That too, four people have been kept in a single room using the same toilet, defeating the very purpose of quarantine," he added.

The junior doctor also claimed that CMC Hospital was neither conducting enough tests nor did the administration provide any explanation for it.

"No proper reason has been cited by the administration. Sometimes they say that there is a shortage of manpower, other times they blame it on lack of kits. There is no specific reason mentioned ever," he further said.