Employees of some primary health centers said that salaries had not been paid for two months
When Shravan Subbaiah (name changed) went to a Primary Health Center (PHC) near JP Nagar for RT-PCR testing, he was shocked to see that not a single health worker was wearing PPE (personal protective equipment). Equally worrisome was the lack of social remoteness in the clinic.
“Those who reported to the center to conduct the tests were standing close to each other, and hovering around a health worker noting their details. It is no surprise that the case load of the city is increasing, ”he said.
With the increase in the number of positive cases, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palik (BBMP) has raised the target for trial in the city. By Monday, the civic body expects to increase the number of tests to 50,000 a day. The goal of vaccination has also been increased.
However, visits of some PHCs in various areas of the city revealed that the health workers in these facilities do not have proper safety gear. Several staff members recruited for COVID-19 duty stated that they had not received their salaries for over two months.
Mallikarjun N (name changed), a swab collector at the PHC of Rajarajeshwaranagar area, had only one face shield and an N95 mask which he has already washed several times. With a pair of gloves, this was the only protection upon which she took a swab from people who might have been infected. “We have not even been given sanitizer. We buy ourselves. Now we have not received the PPE kit for about two months. ‘
His colleagues, too, were working under similar circumstances. For example, the COVID-19 duty doctor at the PHC was not given a surgical mask.
Reuse kit
In another PHC in the West Zone, Akshay Devaraj (changed name) said that they sometimes reuse PPE kits. “When the cases crossed 3,000 in a day, BBMP used to routinely send PPE kits, masks, sanitizers and gloves. When matters subsided, there was a regular supply. Although we send indents for these materials, it is never complete.
Every day around 200 RT-PCR tests are conducted by health workers in this PHC under Dasarahalli zone. Although the staff there claimed that they had the requisite material, when Hindu Visited the facility, employees were wearing only surgical masks, and some had reduced these masks.
Deferred salary
Many health workers complained of delay in payment. “Salaries for November and December were distributed in February. I am struggling to pay rent. Data entry operators and Group D workers also said they had not been paid for the past two months. Jayanti Babu (name changed), a Group D worker at a PHC in the West Zone of Bengaluru, said she was the sole bread winner and had borrowed money to buy provisions to feed her family of four.
When the BBMP Commissioner Ann. When Manjunath Prasad was contacted, he claimed that there was no shortage of PPE kits or other safety gear. He said that the civic body is distributing safety gear to all 141 PHCs covered under it. “These cases should be separated. I will investigate and look into it.
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