Frontline healthcare workers of Super Speciality (SS) Hospital here on Monday held a sit-in protest against the authorities for not sending them into quarantine during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Nearly 60 nurses, resident doctors, technicians and security guards staged the protest after several of their colleagues contracted the virus inside the hospital.

“In the past 10 days, we have been seeing that every day either a nurse or a healthcare worker at SS Hospital is testing positive for coronavirus. The government should provide us a hotel where we can stay after hospital duty instead of going home to infect our families,” said a nurse, who identified herself as Mahjabeena Wani.

At least 11 persons in the hospital, which provides care to critically ill non-Covid patients, have tested positive for coronavirus. They include two patients, four attendants, three nurses, an assistant surgeon and a sweeper.

“A nurse from the gastroenterology department was tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday. She resides in the hostel and shares a room with a female staffer from the cardiology department,” Wani said. “The hospital authorities should frame a duty roster so that a group of health professionals work for two weeks. After seeing them into quarantine for 14 days, another group can come to treat the patients in the hospital,” she said.

They also demanded adequate number of personal protection equipment (PPE) for the frontline workers.

They accused the hospital administration of putting them at risk by not providing them the PPE and accommodation for quarantine.

However, officials said a nurse was sent to a hotel for quarantine. She had gone home from there without informing the hospital administration.

Medical Superintendent, Government Super Specialty Hospital, Dr Shabir Dar, said he could not send any staffer into quarantine without their consent. “We have taken up the matter with the government to provide us a hotel where we can quarantine our staff members,” Dar said.