S Sundar has worked as a duty doctor at a 50-bed private hospital in Chennai for three years. Friday was the first time that the 30-year-old had no patient to attend to during his entire shift of seven hours. “I spent the day watching the Innocence Project series on Netflix,” he said.
The hospital took the decision to house the staff on campus ever since the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24. Sundar has been allotted one of the general ward rooms for his stay, eating his meals in the hospital canteen. “We had a meeting on March 25 when we collectively decided that 50% of us will stay in for a month,” he explained. Apart from the difficulties in organising transport between home and work under lockdown conditions, this was done to limit exposure to the novel coronavirus which has caused the worldwide Covid-19 outbreak.
But a month later, even the reduced staff does not have much work.
The government asked hospitals to stop outpatient departments and elective or non-emergency surgeries. As a result, private hospitals around India are reporting a sharp drop in footfall – as high as 70%-80%, according to a study released by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and...Read more
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