Civil surgeon for action against private labs over ‘false’ reports

AMRITSAR: The Amritsar civil surgeon on Wednesday wrote a letter to the Punjab health department demanding action against two city-based private laboratories after their Covid-19 test reports were found contradicting the results of Government Medical College (GMC).

Five Amritsar residents, including a pregnant woman, who were first tested positive for the coronavirus by the private labs, were later found negative by the GMC laboratory.

Civil surgeon Dr Jugal Kishore said, “Recently, 18 residents of the district were tested positive for Covid-19 at the Tuli Diagnostic Centre, and the Bhasin Pathology Lab. As per protocol, the patients were immediately isolated at GMCH. The hospital authorities took their swab samples for re-testing. Of the 18, five tested negative at the GMC lab. This led to a lot of confusion and swab samples of these patients were tested again the next day only to find that the reports of the private labs were wrong. Four

reports came from Tuli Diagnostic Centre and one from Bhasin Pathology Lab,” he added.

REPORTS DECLARED AS PER SAMPLES, SAYS LAB OWNER

Dr Rohan Tuli, owner of the Tuli Diagnostic Centre, said, “We had received the swab samples from a private hospital and test reports

were declared positive accordingly. We have conducted many tests in the past days and all the results have been found matching with those of the GMC. Our lab is approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).”

“We are ready to submit our reports to the health department, if needed,” he added.