Health staff told to up sampling in Patiala

PATIALA: A day after Patiala district surfaced among 15 districts with high Covid-19 caseload and fatality, the health department issued stricter directions to its frontline workers to increase sampling across the district, or face the music.

Punjab’s two districts— Patiala and Ludhiana— figure in the list released by the Union health ministry following a surge in the Covid cases for the past one month.

In a letter to senior medical officers, the Patiala health department has directed them to meet daily target of collecting at least 3,000 samples. Presently, the district is collecting 1,500-1,800 samples per day.

Patiala district has recorded 6,876 positive cases, of which 5,260 have recovered, while 1,434 are active cases. As many as 182 fatalities have been reported so far.

Following video conferencing with Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Friday, the department has shot off a letter to its medical staff and mobile teams to increase sampling in their respective areas or be ready to face the music.

“The situation can be handled with increased sampling, as it would help the department to contain further spread of the infection. We have collected over 92,000 samples so far,” said Patiala’s civil surgeon Dr Harish Malhotra.

He added that increase in sampling will also help detect symptomatic patients at early stages so that they can be given required treatment. “Of total fatalities, 99% are of those who had one or the other comorbid conditions. In many of the cases, it has been seen that the patients reached hospital when their condition deteriorated,”

Dr Malhotra said.

“The SMOS have been directed to report immediately if any registered medical officers or assistant medical officers refused to go on sampling duty so that the action can be initiated against them under epidemic and disaster management act,” the letter stated.

“People are not cooperating in giving samples. The health workers are facing ill-treatment and misbehaviour not only in villages but in urban areas too. People hurled abuses and even turned violent in some of the recent cases,” said a medical officer, pleading anonymity.