COVID-19: Fear grips medicos after nurse tests positive

‘Doctors, nurses, susceptible to catch virus in absence of protective gear’
KINS
Srinagar, Apr 8: A day after a nurse tested positive for COVID-19, fear has gripped the medical fraternity in Kashmir.
A nurse, who is working at JVC Bemina tested positive for Coronavirus on Tuesday. An official said the 35-year-old nurse was home quarantined for 18 days. The official said her whole family has been taken to hospital for quarantine.
This was the first case in Kashmir when a staff member of any hospital tested positive. This has created a fear among the medical fraternity.
“We have been saying for last several weeks both doctors and nurses treating COVID-19 patients are not safe. We don’t have proper protective gear,” a nurse at Chest Disease Hospital Srinagar told Kashmir Indepth News Service (KINS).
Another nurse from JVC Bemina said: “After it came to fore that the nurse has tested positive for Coronavirus, our families are worried that we might get infected. There is fear among medical staff. Doctors, nurses, and paramedics are susceptible to catch virus in absence of personal protective equipment (PPE),” she added.
He said several doctors have been quarantined after coming in contact with Coronavirus patients as former were not wearing proper protective gear.
Several doctors and nurses of various hospitals who had seen a Coronavirus patient from Hyderpora Srinagar were quarantined. The patient who later died had also visited JVC Bemina.
A doctor at Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Soura said, “We are reluctant to treat Coronavirus suspect patients in absence of protective gear as we too fear for our lives. If government does not provide doctors protective gear, we will lose doctors before patients.”
Kashmir Nurses Association in a statement said, “In every situation we work among the forefront but unfortunately government has never gravitated a grain of attention towards us. We work in grave risk and ironically we have been deprived of equipments to lessen the odds of the consequences that the risk can toll on us.”