Punjab withdraws Covid rapid response teams
Team members to be deployed in testing for the disease
LUDHIANA: Facing acute staff shortage amid spurt in covid-19 cases, the state health department has ordered its 3,000-odd employees, including doctors and Auxiliary Nursing Midwives (ANMs), attached with Rapid Response Teams (RRTs), to disband. The team members will be deployed elsewhere, specially in testing samples for the disease.
Since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, the job of an RRT member has been to reach a house and isolate the patient soon after he/she is tested positive. The team put a sticker outside the house, conducted contact tracing and regularly followed up on the health of the patient.
Additional chief secretary Anurag Agrawal has issued orders in this regard to all deputy commissioners and civil surgeons. Chief secretary Vini Mahajan during a meeting had asked the health department to increase the speed of testing.
State epidemiologist Dr Rakesh Bhasker said the staff attached with the RRT has been deputed for fast-tracking testing. Around 1,000 health care workers of the RRT, including doctors and (ANMs) in Ludhiana will now be deployed at covid-19 facilities.
Sources in the department added teachers, civil defence staff and employees of other government department are likely to be deployed for duties that the RRT team performed. Ludhiana is also being monitored and must conduct 2,000 tests per day, a doctor said, on the condition of anonymity, adding, “It has been ordered that at least 10 contacts of each positive patient should be tracked to plug the rise in cases.”
In another development, Mother and Child Hospital senior medical officer Dr Hitender has been appointed the nodal officer for the level-II facility in district hospital at Ludhiana. Dr Milan Verma has been deputed as nodal officer of level–II facility for government and private hospitals in Ludhiana for overall monitoring and supervision, and to coordinate and facilitate admission of patients. Level-II is for patients requiring more detailed observation or intervention, including support for a single organ failing system. There are three levels, with level III the most critical.