Lucknow, March 15 (IANS): It has been five days since Holi and majority of the hospitals have cleaned up traces of colours played by staff and doctors.

The Coronavirus scare made sure that Holi was played on a subdued manner.

"More than the Corona scare, it was the chief minister's scare that made us clean up the mess immediately after Holi. We were told that the chief minister could undertake an inspection any moment to check on cleanliness amidst the Corona scare," said a ward boy in the Civil hospital in Lucknow.

In the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, most of the doctors played with 'gulal' and that too in the open. Some staff members did play with water colours but took care to ensure that they did not splatter the walls.

However, the state of cleanliness was not up to the mark after Holi in most district hospitals in the state.

"More than the staff, it was the attendants of the patients who walked in and out, smeared with colour. We tried telling them not to do so but no one listens. It would have been a law and order problem if we had insisted," said a doctor in Azamgarh district.

In Lala Lajpat Rai hospital in Kanpur, videos and photographs of colour strewn on the floor and people soaked in Holi colours walking in and out of the wards, have already gone viral on the social media.

A hospital official said that those seen in the videos are 'mostly attendants' and relatives of patients. He said that the cleaning process was on though he admitted that the delay was due to the fact that a large number of the staff was on leave.

Major hospitals in the state capital like the king George's Medical University (KGMU) are maintaining high standards of cleanliness but in the Queen Mary's hospital for women, cow dung can be seen littered in the compound.

"Stray animal roam around all day and the municipal authorities do not take action," said a staff member.