The Union government has no clear data on the number of doctors or other healthcare workers who died in the course of COVID-19 duty in major Centrally-run hospitals in the country between 2020 and 2022 though over ₹200 crore had been disbursed as insurance compensation to their relatives.
This was revealed through replies to questions in Parliament and pleas filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Indian Medical Association (IMA), however, maintains that it has a list of over 1,800 doctors who succumbed to the infection that was acquired while serving patients.
Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, while responding to an unstarred question in the Rajya Sabha, said on July 26 that “disaggregated data on deaths due to COVID-19 by profession or otherwise is not maintained centrally”. The Minister also said that the Union government provided comprehensive insurance of ₹50 lakh to healthcare providers, including community workers and private healthcare workers “who may have been in direct contact and care of COVID-19 patients and may be at risk of being impacted by this or due to accidental death on account of COVID-19 related duty” under ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package: Insurance Scheme for Health Care Workers Fighting COVID-19’.
