Nagaland hoteliers miffed at new SOP; official says it’s not new rule

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Aug. 7 (EMN):  A new standard operating procedure (SOP) issued by the department of Health and Family Welfare directing all quarantine centres using private facilities and all hotels providing paid quarantine to ensure in-house availability of a trained doctor and nurse on 24-hour basis at their own cost has unsettled private hotel owners in Dimapur.

A private hotel owner in the commercial hub, who wished not to be named, told Eastern Mirror that the new SOP was ‘unacceptable’ as the hotels used as quarantine facilities were already running at a huge loss since the pandemic started.

“We already have lowered the room tariffs; we have to pay the staff of the hotel from that, so how can we afford a private doctor and nurse on call for 24 hours?” asked the hotelier.

Informing that the owners of few other hotels were also miffed at the decision of the government, the hotelier said that a meeting amongst the hoteliers would be conducted soon to discuss the matter.

“The government should be the one providing the medical team; it cannot be all up to us to take care of possible Covid cases,” shared the hotel owner.

‘Not a new rule’

However, a top ranking Health official told this newspaper that even before Covid-19, all hotels were supposed to have their own in-house trained doctor for emergency purposes.

“This is not a new rule that the government has directed, neither are we deviating from what is supposed to be existing in the hotels; they are supposed to have their own in-house doctors in the first place,” affirmed the official.

The official reiterated that there is “no win-win situation” for either the government or private sector during this juncture.

“Ninety-nine percent of Covid positive cases are still in the public health facilities; the situation keeps on evolving and changing, and so will the guidelines along with it,” said the official.

Citing that almost all public health facilities, including the military care centres, are saturated, he said more manpower is the need of the hour.

“Government doctors are running from one end to another, catering to paid quarantine centres, screening processes, contact tracing and surveillance,” shared the official.

The official said that other sectors in healthcare like maternal care, HIV/Aids, TB and many vector borne diseases, ‘that are in season now’, are sidelined at the moment as all efforts and manpower have been directed towards Covid-19.

“We have to take into consideration that we may need to sacrifice some other areas of services which we were providing so that other neglected areas can be given some focus too,” said the official.

“Ultimately, private practitioners will have to come on board as their private hospitals will also be used to take care of Covid patients because the numbers will rise,” shared the official.

Even though the new SOP has been issued and confirmed, the official said that implementation would take time.

“The SOP is confirmed and other healthcare sectors also need to be taken care of, not just for Covid-19; slowly paid facilities will eventually cater to mild positive cases,” affirmed the official and reminded the earlier notification about the SOP for home quarantine and isolation regarding asymptomatic and mild positive cases.