Virus-hit India’s health workers brace for monsoon

MUMBAI: With hospitals already severely stretched, coronavirus-hit India is now bracing for the monsoon and its deadly annual onslaught of mosquito-borne illnesses, with an overwhelmed army of public health workers the only defence. Every year illnesses such as dengue fever and malaria infect more than half a million people and kill hundreds in India as the monsoon brings much-needed rain but also devastation and disease.

With more than three decades of experience as a doctor in India's chronically underfunded public healthcare system, Vidya Thakur -- medical superintendent at Mumbai's Rajawadi Hospital -- is used to managing "heavy burdens".

But now, she says, "COVID-19 has left us helpless... and the monsoon will make things even more difficult". Every bit of space at the 580-bed state-run hospital where she works is already devoted to dealing with the pandemic. Beds crowd corridors, storage rooms function as wards and staff are overworked.

At Mumbai's massive Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, better known as Sion, undergraduates have been drafted into service, medical resident Shariva Ranadive told AFP. Many experienced doctors and nurses are staying on the sidelines because they are vulnerable to the virus due to their age or pre-existing conditions such as diabetes.

"Everyone is working constantly... we are overwhelmed," Thakur told AFP. And now with the monsoon having arrived in Mumbai on its months-long journey northwards, she is readying for the usual rush of seasonal ailments.

A particular problem is that many seasonal illnesses have symptoms that are virtually indistinguishable from coronavirus, such as fever, breathing difficulties and loss of appetite. This means more testing, more isolation beds and more protective equipment will be needed to ensure that patients are diagnosed correctly and not exposed to coronavirus too. "We will need to treat everyone as if they were a COVID-19 patient," said Thakur. "Every precaution will have to be taken."