KATHMANDU: The second wave of coronavirus is rapidly spreading and medical/ health professionals who are at the forefront to combat the virus themselves are at high risk of infections.

The frontline workers in Jhapa-based Mechi Hospital are doing their jobs without caring about their lives amidst the lack of motivation.

They have not yet been provided with a risk allowance which they were entitled to get during the first wave of the virus.

The government had announced to ensure risk allowance to frontline workers for a year for working amidst hazardous atmosphere caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mechi Hospital’s superintendent Dr Pitambar Thakur said the non-availability of risk allowance has made health workers and hospital employees disappointed.

As he said, they are upset. ‘’We are already in the second wave of the virus and the infection risk has further increased. But health workers and staffs have not been given the risk allowance which they were supposed to get last year.’’

The Province 1 government is expected to ensure a risk allowance of ten months (four months of last year and six months of the current fiscal) to frontline workers.

They have been given the incentive of just four months since the pandemic has begun. The Hospital demanded the release of Rs 12 million from the government for the payment of risk allowance, but was provided Rs six million, said Hospital’s account officer Manoj Pokhrel.

The Covid-19 cases are on the rise in the district which shares its (open) border with India. The Hospital operates a separate 75-bed Covid-19 facility.

Some 12 to 15 people are diagnosed to have been infected in the district on a daily basis. RSS