New Delhi
Staff at the luxury Suryaa hotel used to wear bright saris as they welcomed guests. Now they must don medical suits and handle gurneys as New Delhi desperately prepares for a predicted surge in coronavirus cases in the coming weeks.
The pandemic is still raging in India with more than half a million cases. The capital, home to 25 million people, is the country’s worst-hit city — its hospitals at breaking point and authorities reaching deep to confront the crisis. “For doctors and nurses it is a part of their lives. For us this is a totally new experience and a very difficult one at that,” said Ritu Yadav, operations manager at the five-star Suryaa, as staff in masks rush to deep clean the building.
“We have got training from the hospital on how to wear the PPE and then take it off but this is something I never thought I would have to do when I chose hospitality as my career.”
Delhi, home to some of India’s most crowded slums, has around 75,000 cases so far, but the city government predicts this will soar to half a million by the end of July.
With newspapers full of reports about patients being turned away from overflowing hospitals, Delhi told the city’s hotels earlier this month they would be roped in to provide hospital care. It is also converting wedding halls, and has several hundred repurposed railway coaches standing by — without air conditioning despite outside temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (105 Fahrenheit).
The Delhi authorities have even started converting a spiritual centre or ashram into a coronavirus isolation facility and hospital with 10,000 beds, many made of cardboard.
‘Hospitality, not hospital’ But for hotels, the move triggered outrage in an industry already reeling under losses because of travel restrictions. The owners of Suryaa and four others approached the court, arguing many staff were over 50 and therefore were high-risk themselves, with no experience of hospital care or handling bio-medical waste.—AFP
