At a hostel room for resident doctors in Mumbai. At a hostel room for resident doctors in Mumbai.

While they are asking patients to practise distancing amid the COVID-19 outbreak, resident doctors in Mumbai are struggling to follow the same principle.

Lodged in crammed hostels, each resident doctor is sharing a room with three or four other doctors. Their mattresses are one or two feet apart and there is a common toilet for about 10 doctors.

On Sunday, two resident doctors tested positive for COVID-19 in Sion hospital and two more in Seven Hills Hospital.

The cases have sent alarm bells ringing among resident doctors who now fear that living in close quarters may become a source of cross infection for the front line workers.

At least 90 healthcare workers have contracted COVID-19 infection in Mumbai — about 8 per cent of the total number of cases in the city that accounts for the maximum cases in Maharashtra. “If we collapse, who will treat the patients?” a resident doctor from Sion hospital asked.

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Doctors are now requesting separate accommodation for those posted in fever clinics and isolation wards. While Seven Hills hospital, dedicated for COVID-19 cases, is providing living quarters in five hotels of Taj,other hospitals have asked residents to “adjust” in the hostels.

Sion hospital has three hostels with 210 rooms for over 800 resident doctors. Two resident doctors from medicine and surgery departments have tested positive for COVID-19. One worked in an isolation ward.

The other attended to a critical patient who required an emergency pancreas surgery. The patient also had pleural effusion — water in the lungs — that required another procedure. He was breathless, but doctors had no time to wait for swab results and so a surgery was conducted. After surgery, his swab tested positive for COVID-19.

The two doctors were shifted to Seven Hills Hospital’s isolation facility on Sunday. Two others tested positive in Seven Hills Hospital after getting exposed to COVID-19 patients on duty. They too are in isolation at Seven Hills Hospital and all of them are stable. “We share the same canteen. Toilets are not disinfected. And hostel rooms are too small. There is ample scope for the virus to transmit,” a resident doctor from Sion hospital said. He said several resident doctors were exposed to the one who has tested positive.

Contact tracing for the two doctors in Sion hospital started on Sunday. “But the administration is making no attempts to quarantine us. Several doctors and nurses are getting exposed. Once exposed, we have to be quarantined for 14 days. That is not happening because of lack of human resources. If we test negative, we have to report back to work,” a resident doctor in Kasturba Hospital said.

Resident doctors have repeatedly raised this issue with BMC and demanded that rooms in nearby lodges, guesthouses and hotels be opened up for doctors treating COVID-19 patients.

Dr Mohan Joshi, dean in Sion hospital, said it is not possible to provide rooms for all resident doctors. “We are all exposed to patients and trying our best to work with available resources,” he added. Several resident doctors said they want to help the government fight the pandemic. “But we can’t do it if our health is compromised,” said a KEM Hospital resident doctor associated with Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors. The outfit is now holding discussions if doctors posted in isolation wards can be accommodated on a floor in the OPD building of Sion hospital.

Here’s a quick Coronavirus guide from Express Explained to keep you updated: What can cause a COVID-19 patient to relapse after recovery? | COVID-19 lockdown has cleaned up the air, but this may not be good news. Here’s why | Can alternative medicine work against the coronavirus? | A five-minute test for COVID-19 has been readied, India may get it too | How India is building up defence during lockdown | Why only a fraction of those with coronavirus suffer acutely | How do healthcare workers protect themselves from getting infected? | What does it take to set up isolation wards?

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