The Hindu Rao Hospital in New Delhi was sanitised on Sunday, after a 32-year-old nurse working there tested positive for the coronavirus, The Times of India reported on Monday. The Out Patient Department and emergency services were closed. However, the emergency services and three OPDs will reopen from Monday.
North Delhi Municipal Corporation Commissioner Varsha Joshi said the hospital will resume services of emergency and casualty wards and the flu clinic, including three OPDs – gynaecology, paediatrics and medicines – with restricted entry of patients and attendants from Monday.
Joshi said primary contact tracing has been completed. “A meeting of the technical committee of the hospital was held in coordination with medical officers of the Delhi government,” she said.
The nurse is a resident of Mahipalpur area and does not have any history of foreign travel. “The source of infection has not yet been ascertained,” a government official said. “She had been in touch with healthcare personnel in the medicine department, flu centre and ENT department. On Sunday, we screened 57 healthcare personnel who were in direct contact with her.”
The government official added that samples of seven contacts have been collected and these individuals have been put into institutional quarantine. The other 50 have been asked to go into home quarantine.
A colleague of the nurse has alleged that she had asked for leave as she had coronavirus symptoms, but this was not granted. Joshi said she has asked for a full report in the matter. “Other contacts of the nurse, who were not in hospital, will also be tested and quarantined separately,” she said. “We do not know how the nurse got infected as there is no established contact history in a lot of cases nowadays.”
Another hospital, Jagjivan Ram Hospital, was closed for new patients after least 44 employees contracted the virus. But those who are already receiving critical care will continue to be looked at. The staff members who tested positive included doctors.
Delhi has so far recorded 2,918 cases of Covid-19, including 54 deaths, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
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