Sans PPE, docs fear to enter emergency ward, patient dies

Early this week, a 30-yearold man from UP was rushed to the emergency ward at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital at 1 pm after he complained of sudden breathlessness. As the patient exhibited symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), he was suspected of having COVID-19.

A team of 10 doctors, including senior physicians and PG medical students were present at the emergency ward but none dared to treat the patient as they had not been provided with PPE. “By 3 pm, the patient died and we could not do anything about it,” said a young doctor at the RGGGH. He also said that this wan’t an isolated case.

The dilemma on whether to treat emergency patients without PPE began at the RGGGH a few days ago after a cardiologist at the hospital tested positive. Upon tracing the source of the infection, the medical team eventually zeroed in on a patient who was referred from the emergency unit to the cardiology department. “The patient was brought from a private hospital after he complained of chest pain. He also had fever and cough symptoms. When doctors took an ECG, there seemed to be some abnormality and thus he was sent to cardiology OP. The patient died soon after due to myocardial infarction and his COVID-19 reports could not be confirmed. The cardiologist is likely to have got infected from this patient. This was found after cluster tracing of the cardiologist,” a resident doctor at RGGGH said.

Since then, treatment protocol at the emergency unit was ‘unofficially’ changed. “Patients need not be given CPR, their breath need not be analysed and they cannot be administered oxygen unless doctors are fully equipped with PPE,” a senior physician said on condition of anonymity. While the Health Department repeatedly claims that adequate PPE kits have been provided at all government hospitals, doctors on condition of anonymity confirmed that, as on Wednesday, sufficient PPE kits were not available even in the emergency ward of RGGGH. When contacted, Dr SK Thirunavukkarasu, resident medical officer at the RGGGH said that he was not aware of the incident. “I generally oversee administrative activities but will look into it,” he said. State nodal officer for COVID-19 management and professor of Medicine at the MMC, Dr Raghunandnan said, “I am unaware of the particular case but we can verify the details. However, doctors at all emergency units and critical care units are being provided with PPE kits.” 

Director of Public Health, Dr K Kolandaisamy said all emergency cases need to be treated as potential COVID19 patients. “We are now providing masks for everyone entering the hospital and giving N95 masks or three-layer masks to the doctors in the OP based on the nature of the consultation. The doctors in the emergency unit will be given PPE,” he said.