Bengaluru: All the required medical consumables needed for the health workers should be supplied uniformly across all the hospitals before roping in medical students for COVID-19 duty, opined Dr. N. K.Venkataramana, a noted Neurologist.

 The call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rope in medical students and interns was a welcome step, but before deploying them for COVID duty, they should be trained and necessary consumables should be available in all COVID hospitals, he said.

Consumables such as goggles, head cover, face shield, standardised mask, PPEs, leg cover and gloves which are disposable and facility to wash hands frequently need to be facilitated in hospitals immediately. If medical students are made to work COVID duty without ensuring these, our medical human resource is going to be hit very soon, Dr. Venkataramana warned.

It should be mandatory to train before taking them for COVID services and the Govt. should take care of their medical professional as well. Otherwise, it would be like an army not knowing how to handle guns on the battlefield. Training will help to protect themselves from being infected and also to be vigilant on not spreading the infection to the others, he said.

The future medical professionals should be trained about the global standards that need to be followed. Many of them will not be aware of universal precautions. So educating them before bringing them to the system is necessary, he added. Likewise, medical guidelines, guidelines for public and for healthcare workers should be enforced strictly without any compromise, he opined.

All medical students, interns, post-graduates, including nursing students and medical volunteers, if necessary, should be roped in  for the battle against the pandemic. While this being done, implementing the National Uniform Medical guideline, strict triaging and the protocol to be followed across the country irrespective of the hospital being Government or private, small or big becomes very important, he noted.