Maharashtra has been robbed of 42 doctors as they have been quarantined after a patient that they were treating tested positive for the Wuhan virus. There was widespread panic in Pune’s DY Patil hospital after the patient tested positive for the virus which has led to 92 hospital staff going into quarantine.
The patient, an auto-rickshaw driver, was involved in an accident and was treated at the DY Patil Hospital. It is alleged that the patient’s family hid the patient’s travel history from the hospital staff. According to the Times of India, two days later when the patient developed fever, the doctors inquired from the mother of the patient who revealed that he attended the Tablighi Jamaat meet in Nizamuddin, New Delhi.
“We had asked him and his family members about his recent travel history, but they said he had none. A team of doctors, assisted by nurses, performed an emergency surgery involving resection of a part of his damaged intestine,” said a hospital official.
The patient hails from Khadki and was being treated for internal bleeding after being admitted to the hospital on March 31. However a couple of days later, the patient started having fever which prompted the doctors to question his mother again and hence, it was revealed that the patient had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation.
“We have shifted the patient to YCM hospital in Pimpri after he tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday night. We have also sent the throat swab samples of the 40 surgeons and resident doctors who had come in contact with him to the National Institute of Virology (NIV). They have been quarantined in separate rooms in one of the hospital’s floors,” said a senior official of the hospital.
However, Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar has denied the reports of the patient having attended the Tablighi Jamaat. “The patient is in ICU. People are speculating about his links, but right now we can only say he is not from the Tablighi Jamaat. He is from a different community altogether,” said Hardikar.
Maharashtra has emerged as India’s epicenter of the Wuhan virus as the state is struggling to contain the virus. Recently, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation declared Wockhardt Hospital a containment zone after 26 nurses and 3 doctors tested positive for the virus. No one is allowed to enter or leave the hospital until they test negative successively.
Action must be taken against those who hide their travel history from the authorities. At a time when the state of Maharashtra is scrambling to contain the virus and needs all its medical professionals up and running, unfortunately 42 doctors have been forced to go into a quarantine due to a patients’s careless and irresponsible attitude.