New Delhi: India is fighting with all its might to prevent the spread of the pandemic COVID-19. However, the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare professionals is becoming a serious deterrent for the country as it tries to contain the deadly virus.
India has already registered close to 9,000 positive coronavirus cases with the number of deaths closing in on the 300-mark. The disease has slowly but surely spread from big cities to smaller towns and villages and it is in these places that the shortage of PPEs is being felt.
As one doctor said, “We are being called to soldiers in the fight against coronavirus. But when soldiers go to fight, they have ammunition. You don’t send soldiers to fight without ammunition.” Others of the same profession said that they were using raincoats and motorbike helmets as protective gears because PPEs are not available. Some hospitals here and in Mumbai have been shut down after doctors and nurses working in those tested positive for the dreaded virus. They tested positive as they attended to coronavirus patients and suspects with proper protective gear.
It is not just the doctors and healthcare professionals that need PPEs. Policemen who are trying to enforce the lockdown across the country are also exposed to the disease due to the lack of PPEs. “Policemen in the line of duty to fight coronavirus also need protection as they are exposed to the virus,” said a senior police official in Uttar Pradesh. “They are regularly coming in contact with people who are fleeing quarantine centres. So, PPEs are a must for all police personnel who are chasing down these suspects,” the official added.
There are many chief ministers including Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal who have expressed concern due to the shortage in numbers of PPEs. In West Bengal nurses and other staff of two hospitals refused to work as they were not provided with the protective gear needed while attending to COVID-19 patients.
Government sources have said that India needs at least a million PPE kits, 40 million N95 masks, 20 million surgical masks and a million litres of hand sanitisers currently. The Health Ministry a few days back has said that at present manufacturers are churning out 15,000 PPEs per day. But experts say that the numbers are too small to meet the present demand.
The Health Ministry recently informed that it has placed orders for 17 million PPE kits and it has given the nod to 20 domestic manufacturers to produce protective gears. However, there is no clear date as to when the numbers will materialise. It also informed that orders have been placed foreign manufacturers from countries like Singapore and China. But even then, the crunch for PPEs continue to haunt healthcare professionals.
A senior official associated with the Indian Device Industry has been quoted as saying that India was well ‘aware of the threat of coronavirus in January and the government should have started stockpiling PPEs from that month itself’. “Now more domestic manufacturers must be roped in as quickly as possible to speed up the production of protective gears. There is no time to waste,” the official asserted.
But till that happens the Indian healthcare professionals will be soldiers without ‘ammunitions’ as they fight against coronavirus. Has a battle ever been won against an enemy without ammunitions? The answer is an emphatic no, but in this case only the future has the answer. Till then one just has to salute the healthcare professionals for their courage, their sacrifice.
Agencies
