Hospital now a containment zone

Twenty-six nurses and three doctors attached to Wockhardt Hospital have tested positive for COVID-19, and the hospital has been declared a containment zone. Services at the Mumbai Central hospital were stopped by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation last week.

On Sunday, six more nurses quarantined at a hostel tested positive, as did a few more quarantined on the hospital premises. A hospital source said the COVID-19 isolation ward at the hospital and an intensive care unit (ICU) designated a COVID-19 ward are mainly occupied by their own staff.

The nurses have alleged serious infection control lapses, which the hospital has refuted. Hospital authorities claimed the staff were exposed to a cardiac patient with no history of travel or COVID-19 symptoms, who later tested positive. But nurses have circulated a letter saying two contacts of a COVID-19 patient were admitted to the general ICU, where the staff were on duty without protective gear. It was the same ICU where the cardiac patient was brought later. Both contacts had tested positive.

Another South Mumbai hospital, Jaslok at Peddar Road, also has over 12 employees who are infected. While most are nurses, a security guard and his wife have also tested positive. The hospital has sent 400 swabs for testing and is awaiting many results.