BMC class III & IV staffers upset: ‘Not being tested, not being treated’

Across Mumbai, according to municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal, 1,529 BMC staffers have been infected. Municipal Mazdoor Union estimates there are 520 Class III and IV staffers infected across civic hospitals and an equal number in quarantine.

“We are treated as if we are not humans, why should we work for such a system,” says a 33-year-old cleaner and mortuary worker in Kasturba hospital as he piles his entire home’s belongings into boxes in a tempo on Wednesday. After his entire family tested positive, he borrowed money to move from his cramped BMC staff quarters in Wadala and rent a bigger house outside Mumbai to ensure his family can maintain physical distancing until the pandemic ends.

BMC’s class III and IV workers have been toiling behind the scenes during the pandemic, lifting and sealing bodies and cleaning isolation wards, and are among the frontline workers in the city’s battle to contain Covid-19. In the last two weeks, they have held at least two protests, one in KEM and the other at Kasturba hospital. Their demands are basic: test and treat us when we fall ill, give us shelter.

Many of these essential staff are now staying away. “At least 75 per cent employees are not coming to work, we are managing somehow with limited staff,” said Dr Mohan Joshi, dean, Nair hospital. In KEM, dean Dr Hemant Deshmukh earlier this week assured staffers of proper treatment and testing when needed.

Across Mumbai, according to municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal, 1,529 BMC staffers have been infected. Municipal Mazdoor Union estimates there are 520 Class III and IV staffers infected across civic hospitals and an equal number in quarantine. Class III and IV workers clean wards, carry test reports, transfer patients and hand over bodies.

‘We carry the infection home’

When his two-month-old daughter and then three-year-old son tested positive, the 33-year-old Kasturba staffer was ridden with guilt. He has been working with Covid-19 patients in Kasturba, the city’s first Covid facility, since March. He would seal four-five bodies in a day. On May 1 he developed fever. It took a week, two visits and much pleading to get tested. “Whenever I told doctors I was ill, they said take medicine, but refused to test me. I had to beg them to test me,” he said. After him, his brother, also a hospital cleaner, too tested positive.

They spent Rs 20,000 to test four family members, all came positive. Their’s is a one-room house in Wadala quarters. “No BMC team came to disinfect our chawl or for contact-tracing,” he said. He realised the staff quarters where all Kasturba cleaners live was not safe to stay anymore, and feared for his his elderly parents and his children. After May 17 when he was discharged, he borrowed Rs 30,000 and rented a 2BHK in Ambernath.

Not every staffer has been lucky like him. Those who cannot afford physical distancing at home, live in the hospital, sleeping on ward floors. Another 40-year-old staffer in Kasturba hospital has not seen his family since two months though they live 10 minutes away in Saat Rasta. “I got a bedsheet from home and sleep on the floor in a room allotted to us,” he says. Forty-nine Class III and IV employees in Kasturba sleep on the floor. In other hospitals, too, they are allowed space in side rooms or empty wards.

Short-staffed hospitals

Those aged above 55 have been moved to safer postings in BMC. Pradeep Narkar, secretary of Municipal Mazdoor Union, said at least 20 per cent strength of Class III and IV employees has reduced in hospitals after this move. “It was necessary to keep the elderly safe, we are now short of 1,000 staffers,” he said.

In KEM, when cleaner Surendra developed fever on May 20, he was neither granted leave nor tested. Four days later he became breathless and his family rushed him to hospital from their Thane home. He died before reaching KEM. For two days his body lay in hospital morgue. Sukhdeo Kashid, a union representative, said, “Several staffers are in quarantine, as the number of staffers working is limited, hospitals are not granting leave,” he said. The maximum infected staffers are in Sion hospital where staffers complain they were not immediately quarantined or tested when their co-workers came positive. In KEM, 40 staffers are infected, of them eight are mortuary workers. In Nair hospital, 42 staffers are positive.