New Guidelines For Pvt Hospitals To Check COVID-19 Spread In Bhubaneswar Slums

Representative Picture

Bhubaneswar: Amid rising COVID-19 cases in city slums, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday issued fresh guidelines to private hospitals/nursing homes to check the spread of the virus in these densely populated areas, which house 1/3rd of the total population of the Odisha capital.

“In the recent past, several healthcare workers/staff of private hospitals/nursing homes residing in the slums have tested positive for the virus. Frequent movement of hospital staff to slum areas, therefore, poses a risk of spread of the virus quickly,” the BMC notification said.

FRESH DIRECTIVES

All the private hospitals/nursing homes have been asked to maintain an exclusive database of employees residing in slum areas of BMC. These employees are to be assigned a shift for 14 days and the hospital authorities will make accommodation arrangement of them within the hospital premises.

After the 14 days shift, the set of employees will be relieved of the duties only after they test negative for COV1D-19. The next set of employees will then be given duties and the same procedure will be adopted if they too belong to slum areas, it added.

The notification further said that all private hospitals/nursing homes will nominate a responsible officer of their organization as nodal officer and share the name, designation and contact number along with the preliminary shift arrangement made by them with the ADUPHO-UH, along with the subsequent shifts.

These steps are being taken because social distancing is practically not possible because of small houses and high population density in the slums, the civic body said, adding that it had earlier carried out active surveillance and management of symptomatic cases in these areas.

Notably, among the 26 new COVID-19 patients detected in the last 24 hours, 23 are local contact cases and seven of them belong to three slums in the city. With this, the cases in the slums have gone up to 37.

Also Read: Bhubaneswar Reports 23 Local Cases, Seven From City Slums; Total 314

Also Read: COVID-19 Threat: Bhubaneswar Slums Waiting To Explode?