Long wait for test report irks many

Long wait for test report irks many

Sidhartha.Roy@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: 26.06.2020

On Thursday, a north Delhi resident and her two-and-ahalf-year-old daughter, both Covidpositive patients, spent the entire day at the Narela care centre waiting anxiously for a report from the district surveillance officer (DSO). The report was to be the deciding factor whether they could go back to the comfort of their home or be lodged at the health facility.

“The woman said she had adequate facilities for home isolation, but we didn’t get the report today. We couldn’t discharge them,” said Dr Ishrat Kafeel, the chief minister’s representative at the Narela centre, the capital’s first and one of the biggest facilities. “Such occurrences are a huge problem as testing centres have been sending positive patients to the centres directly for screening. The patients don’t want to stay at the centre and prefer to go home, but we have to abide with the orders,” he added.

A new set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) from lieutenant governor Anil Baijal passed earlier this week had made it mandatory for all Covid-positive people, even those who were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, to visit the care centres for screening.

The order, which was finally reversed on Thursday, had been criticised by Delhi government. The assessment of a person as symptomatic, asymptomatic, mild, moderate or severe will now be done at the testing centres and all patients won’t be directed to Covid care centres.

The footfall at care centres was abysmally low since the new SOPs came into place. Though figures for Wednesday and Thursday were not available, the total number of patients who had come for screening was 294 on Monday and 144 the next day. The highest combined footfall of Monday and Tuesday was 81 at the Dwarka Sector 16 care centre, followed by Narela, which screened 79 patients in these two days.

The Mandoli centre catered to 62 patients, Terapanth Bhavan 61and Saket 59. In fact, eight centres didn’t see a single patient in these two days, including the ones at Tughlaqabad, Pusa Road, Rouse Avenue and two in Okhla.

“The turnout of patients was very low on Thursday compared with the previous few days,” Kafeel said, adding that the reversal of the order comes as a big relief for doctors, healthcare personnel and government employees involved in the process. “The report by the team that visited a patient’s house to check for home isolation facilities took six hours or more to reach the care centre. The patients had no option but to wait in the heat. The long procedure was a huge burden on us,” he added.

An official at a south Delhi care centre said, “When patients were informed that they would have to stay back, they protested vehemently. Most prefer home isolation.”

NO TAKERS? The footfall at Covid care centres was abysmally low since the new SOPs came into place