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Hospitals struggle to get healthcare workers as Covid-19 cases spike

During the early weeks of the outbreak in India in March and April, a combination of caution and fear pushed many healthcare professionals to return home

health workers, disinfectant, Vidhana Soudha corridor in Bengaluru
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The pandemic has also brought to the fore the differences in salaries and facilities that contracted healthcare workers and their peers employed on a permanent basis are entitled to.

Nidhi Jacob, Vedika Inamdar, Arunabh Saha, Surbhi Bharadwaj | IndiaSpend Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur and Guwahati
Government and private hospitals are finding it difficult to recruit new and additional healthcare workers to care for Covid-19 patients even as the number of people testing positive continues to grow--1.59 million as of July 30, 2020--our reporting in five cities found.

The Covid-19 pandemic has added to the stress of an overburdened healthcare workforce. India has one medical doctor for every 1,404 people and 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). This