Hyderabad's Gandhi hospital declares Nigeria returned patient Ebola-free
Hyderabad: The patient admitted in the special ebola ward of Gandhi Hospital has been declared “Ebola-free” after tests were conducted by the National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi. The results of the tests were declared on Tuesday evening.
The patient, living in Srinagar Colony, had been rushed to Care Hospitals, Banjara Hills, with very high fever, cough and cold.
He had visited Nigeria for work and had returned on November 21 to India. He was also tested at the Delhi airport. On November 24, he had very high fever and came to Care Hospital for a check-up but was sent to the Gandhi Hospital.
On Monday night, he was shifted to the Ebola ward under the care of virology department in-charge Dr K. Narsimulu, microbiologist Dr Satyanarayan Murthy and epidemiologist Dr G. Vinod.
The Ebola ward is on the 7th floor of Gandhi Hospital, which houses no other wards. There is a security guard outside and the patients’ rooms are separate. There are no general wards, only 12 rooms on the entire floor.
Dr K. Narsimulu, nodal officer of the unit, said, “We three doctors were all night with him. We have recently been trained in New Delhi of the precautions that are to be taken. A special nursing staff is also to be trained."
But as the patient was shifted, there was a conflict between the contract nurses and the permanent nurses as the former said that they would not take care of the patient.
Dr Narsimulu said, “It was an argument between them. We have not asked any nurse to step in the ward for now. We have to first train them, which we are going to undertake.”
There was, meanwhile, chaos at Gandhi Hospital on Tuesday as everyone was scared about the patient. Attendants, relatives and others were distributed masks to avoid infection.
