Manpower crisis grips Karnataka hospitals amid Covid-19 surge

Karnataka’s hospitals, overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients, say they are facing a manpower crisis that threatens to hinder treatment of the critically ill and efforts at adding oxygen beds.

India is battling a deadly second wave of the coronavirus. While the first wave saw several doctors, nurses and paramedical staff contracting the infection, problems during the second wave have been quite different, though some medical staff have tested positive for Covid despite vaccination.

Several hospitals ET spoke with said there is a severe shortage of nursing staff following resignations over the last few months in favour of better opportunities overseas or to return to their hometowns because of work fatigue, fear of being put on Covid duty and family pressure.


Harish Pillai, CEO, Aster India chain of hospitals at Aster DM Healthcare, said the rapid rise in demand for ICU beds has put a pressure on the existing resources.

“In some instances, we have been forced to go beyond frontline workers and deploy other staff, including clinicians from surgical specialities for Covid duty after they undergo specific Covid management bridging programmes,” said Pillai.

Prakriya Hospitals CEO Srinivas Chirukuri said that finding replacement for trained workforce is a challenge. The cost of manpower has increased five times and it is not sustainable, he added.

Manpower agencies said they are unable to find trained workforce even though demand is high. “If a hospital asks us for 10 nurses, we can just help them find two or three people. The supply chain gap is huge,” said Jaison Varghese, managing director of Eljay Medical Staffing India Pvt. Ltd., a staffing firm that has recruited over 300,000 nurses in hospitals across India.

The Covid-19 outbreak last year pushed up demand for Indian nurses, especially in the Middle East, while lucrative offers in the UK contributed to the shortage. “Many countries have now relaxed conditions to recruit Indian nurses. They also get visas within 24 hours. And nurses prefer going overseas for better salaries and prospects,” Varghese said.

Hospitals are approaching medical and nursing institutes to bring on board final-year students to reduce the burden on the existing workforce.

“We are reaching out to nursing colleges to send trainees for on-the-job internships during their final year at the college. This helps to create a balance in the staff strength,” said Rainbow Children’s Hospital Bengaluru cluster head Akshay Oleti.

With Covid positivity rate forecast to remain in the 25-30% range for next few months, the country’s health system is expected to come under enormous strain.

Narayana Health executive director Viren Shetty said the government should immediately graduate all final-year students of every medical discipline. “Also, seats at all nursing and medical colleges should be doubled and classes should be held remotely,” Shetty said.

However, hospitals are also apprehensive about deploying final-year students on Covid duty. “The existing workforce has no time to train them. So hospitals are obviously looking for those with some experience of working in ICUs,” said Parkway Healthcare assistant vice-president (operations) Ananth N Rao.

As a stop-gap arrangement, he said, the management asks freshers and trainees to take up non-Covid work, which allows the trained staff to take care of the Covid wards.