BMC declares Mumbai's Wockhardt Hospital a containment zone after more staff test positive for COVID-19

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has declared Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital a containment zone after three doctors and 26 nurses tested positive for coronavirus within a span of one week. BMC had stopped services at the hospital last week, swinging into action after the cases began to rise, The Times of India reported. No one will be allowed to enter or leave the central Mumbai hospital until those infected fully recover and test negative for coronavirus twice. The crisis at Wockhardt hospital comes at a time when the Mumbai’s health and civic officials are combating cases from the slums in Dharavi and Worli Koliwada. A designated COVID-19 ward at the hospital is mainly occupied by its own staff, The Hindu reported. Samples of over 250 hospital staff and patients have been sent for testing and BMC has ordered the hospital canteen to provide food to the staff. According to the media reports, two nurses who attended to a 70-year-old heart patient who was later tested positive for coronavirus were infected with coronavirus. It is believed that the virus might have transmitted from these two nurses to other hospital staff. According to the report in The Times of India, the hospital staff have alleged that the colleagues and roommates of the infected nurses were not quarantined immediately, leading to rapid transmission of the deadly virus. Two of the three doctors positive who tested have been admitted to Seven Hills Hospital, while the other one is undergoing treatment at SL Raheja Hospital in Mahim.