60 +ve from NIMS roam freely
Yet to report to Gandhi Hospital for treatment, poor co-ordination stands exposed
About 60 persons who tested positive for Coronavirus at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) have not been reported to Gandhi Hospital, the nodal hospital for treating patients. Only five others have gone to Gandhi Hospital.
The virology department at NIMS tested over 2,000 samples from corporate hospitals since March, of whom 65 were positive. Surprisingly, neither the NIMS management nor the corporate hospitals informed Gandhi Hospital about the positive cases.
According to highly placed sources in NIMS, the virology department has been testing the samples sent by corporate hospitals at `4,500 per test. Though the results were sent back to the corporate hospitals, NIMS did notify the government.
The hospital staff says that it was not their job to notify the cases to any of the nodal agencies, including the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) or the district medical health officer (DMHO). They said that it was the responsibility of the corporate hospitals to shift the patient immediately to Gandhi Hospital, following state government’s guidelines. The lack of co-ordination between two prime government hospitals would lead to disaster.
However, sources in Gandhi Hospital said that till date only five patients who tested positive by the NIMS were admitted. The information has been shared with the civic authorities in order to home quarantine the primary and secondary contacts.
On the flipside, the DMHO office which was supposed maintain the data of Covid-19 patients in the city does not have information on these 60 persons.
A DMHO official assumed that those who tested positive in corporate hospitals are either home quarantined or getting treated in corporate hospitals since most of them would asymptomatic. The civic authorities said that they did not receive any data pertaining to corporate hospitals in order to take up containment activities, or track primary and secondary contacts to home quarantine them. When Deccan Chronicle tried to reach Dr J. Venkat, DMHO, Hyderabad, he said he was busy to share the data.