'Nursing students can be roped in for Covid treatment in emergency'
Kolkata: State health department on Tuesday issued an advisory saying that nursing students can be included in the treatment of Covid patients. The decision has been taken after a large number of doctors, nursing professionals and health workers in various government and private hospitals have been infected with Covid.
The main purpose of the move is to ensure that treatment may not be hampered. Some of the medical colleges in the city have already restricted planned surgeries due to large scale infection among the health professionals.
The 1st and 2nd year students of BSC (Nursing) will be inducted for screening of Covid patients while the 3rd year and 4th year BSC (Nursing) students will treat Covid patients with mild and moderate symptoms. MSC (Nursing) 1st and 2nd year students will treat critical patients. State government has framed norms as per the guidelines issued by the Centre.
This model will be followed by the hospitals if all the doctors and nursing professionals are infected. These nursing students will be made ready as a back-up. Over 400 doctors have been infected in various hospitals in Kolkata in the past two weeks and the infection is still on the rise.
State had engaged interns and junior doctors for Covid treatment during the second wave when various hospitals saw a sudden surge in Covid cases. The state Health department will also train these nursing students who will be deployed. More than 600 nursing professionals from various medical colleges have been infected in less than a week, raising a serious concern for the health services in the hospitals.
According to sources, over 250 nurses have been infected at NRS Medical College and Hospital in the last couple of days while in RG Kar Medical College, around 100 nursing professionals tested positive for Covid in the last few days. At Calcutta Medical College, at least 150 nurses have been infected in the last few days while over 112 nurses have been affected at Calcutta National Medical College.
