Centre revises rules to keep healthcare staff protected

The government has framed fresh guidelines for hospitals to prevent Covid-19 infection and proposed that all hospitals activate hospital infection control committees (HICCs) and institute a buddy system to help take off personal protective gear as healthcare workers get infected across cities.

The health and family welfare ministry has revised guidelines for managing healthcare workers working in Covid and non-Covid areas of medical facilities as the rate of infection is rising.

While HICC will be responsible for implementing the infection prevention and control activities and organising regular trainings for healthcare workers, a nodal officer shall be identified by each health facility to address infections in healthcare workers. The officer will be responsible for all workers being provided personal protective equipment (PPEs). A healthcare worker has to immediately report unprotected exposure or breach of PPE while managing Covid patients to the nodal officer and department head.


The biggest change in the guidelines is that despite an exposure, the healthcare worker will continue to work wearing a PPE and test on the fifth day of the exposure or when symptoms develop anytime within 14 days from the day of exposure.

In the first set of guidelines issued for healthcare workers in May 2020, the ministry had prescribed that the nodal officer form a sub-committee to determine whether the exposure was high risk or low risk. It recommended a 14-day quarantine for high-risk exposure, even for the healthcare worker's contacts. The guidelines prescribed normal work for low-risk contacts and self-monitoring.

A senior health ministry official said, "This has been prescribed as hospitals are facing a staff crunch due to rising infections. In May 2020 at the time of previous guidelines, infections were not this high."