Limit working hours for resident doctors on COVID duty, make provision for their mental health care: IMA suggests to govts

New Delhi [India], January 5 (ANI): With the rising number of COVID cases, the Indian Medical Association on Wednesday suggested that the Centre and state governments should limit the duty of resident doctors on COVID-19 patients to eight hours and make provision for taking care of their mental health.
According to the IMA, "In the event of COVID duty doctors becoming ill, they should be admitted to government/private hospital at the earliest and in case of untimely death, the status of COVID martyr and compensation as well as casewise assistance should be arranged."
"The Indian Medical Association (HQs) wants to suggest to the State Governments or the Central Government associated with the concerned medical college so that the safety of doctors from infection can be ensured to a great extent because doctors are the backbone of Indian health services in the pandemic," the statement read.
If further stated that the COVID-19 duty of resident doctors should not exceed eight hours per day and seven days, after which there should be a quarantine of 10 to 14 days in the accommodation prescribed by the hospital.
The association also highlighted that around 2,000 doctors died during the second wave of COVID.
"The mortality rate in the country was around 1.5 per cent among the general population and around 2-3 per cent among healthcare workers. According to this estimate, COVID hit about 100,000 doctors," IMA added.
Importantly, the medical association also mentioned that the mortality in the third wave is expected to be low but the Omicron variant is 5.4 times more infectious than the delta variant and due to the high exposure of healthcare to COVID patients in clinics and hospitals, doctors are expected to have 5 to 10 times more Covid infections than the general public.
"In many big medical colleges or hospitals of the country, a large number of medical staff, especially doctors, have been found infected. So the health infrastructure can crumble due to the shortage of sick doctors," IMA further warned. (ANI)