Reluctant patients, burdened doctors at Covid care centres
NEW SOPS Confusion triggered by orders stating all mild, asymptomatic patients be brought in once
nNEWDELHI: For seven Covid-19 positive, but asymptomatic, patients brought to the Delhi government’s Covid Care Centre (CCC) in Narela on Tuesday morning for a clinical examination, the day seemed never-endling. “I have all the facilities for remaining in home quarantine. I don’t know what I’m doing here,” said Dinkar Chopra (36), a resident of Rohini’s Sector 17 and one of the seven patients brought to the CCC.
Till evening, the patients remained at the facility even as doctors and district officials debated on whether to keep them at the centre or allow them to return to home isolation.
The new round of confusion was triggered by a fresh set of SOPS (standard operating procedures) from Delhi’s lieutenantgovernor Monday that mandates sending all mild and asymptomatic patients to CCCS for checkups.
Officials that HT spoke to, on the condition of anonymity, said the new guidelines were quickly turning into a logistics nightmare for the state. With nearly 3,000 new cases being reported every day for the past one week in the national capital, district officials say it is impossible to take so many patients, especially those who are asymptomatic, to the centre just for a screening.
“This is a time-consuming process. We can allow these patients to be taken back home only after we get a report from the district surveillance team stating that patients have adequate facilities to remain in home quarantine. It took almost an entire day to get everything done,” Dr Ishrat Kafeel, the chief minister’s repremany sentative at the Narela facility, said.
Chopra, who is asymptomatic, said he got his RT-PCR test done as a precautionary measure after a few people he came in contact with tested positive for the Covid-19 infection over the past few days.
“I got the rapid test done and was advised home isolation after officials inspected and okayed my home. I then suddenly got a call and was brought to Narela for a screening. I have adequate infrastructure to remain in home isolation. I don’t want to stay here,” he said.
At the Sultanpuri CCC, the district administration has sent nearly 30 asymptomatic patients. “We are yet to get the report on how many patients could be examined on Tuesday and how many of them were sent home by evening,” a district official, who is part of the surveillance team, said on condition of anonymity.
But several CCCS didn’t get a lot of patients for clinical examination on Tuesday. “There have been multiple orders over the past three days. We are trying to streamline the system. We still have patients who were admitted to the CCC after the Delhi Disaster Management Authority ordered five days of mandatory quarantine.” a senior district official said.
“Most of these patients want to return home. We are in the process of sending them back but for that, we need a report from the district surveillance team stating that these patients have adequate facilities for home isolation,” the official, quoted above, said.
A senior district official said there are only a limited number of ambulances available and these have to be used to ferry serious patients. But the new protocol insists that officials spare ambulances for ferrying asymptomatic patients to CCCS.
“Some of the centres are located in far-off places and we can’t take multiple patients in a single trip. These patients then have to wait till the ground report is cleared,” another district official said.
At some CCCS, such as the two Delhi government schools at New Friends Colony, no patient was referred for clinical examination on Tuesday. So was the case with the centre at Bakkarwala, where Delhi government’s shelter board flats have been turned into a Covid care facility.
District officials said the new guidelines increased the workload of the already overburdened district staff. “Our teams are going to a patient’s home and examining him/her. Today, not patients were sent to CCC for examination. It is not possible to send everyone to the centre,” a third senior official said.
A senior Delhi government official said very few cases could be taken to CCCS Tuesday. “At some centres, there were five patients, while some others had nearly 30 patients. The numbers taken to CCCS are very few when compared to the number of positive cases,” the official, requesting anonymity, said. The person, however, declined to give an overall figure of people taken to CCCS on Tuesday and said the data was being compiled.
While screening has become more cumbersome, testing has become easier in the capital with the advent of antigen tests, a more rapid way for testing for Covid-19. At the testing centre in Pilanji village, patients were given reports within 30-45 minutes of sample collection.
“Once we get the report, we examine patients and give them the Oximeter test ( to check oxygen levels in blood) to see if they are fit for home isolation,” Sarita Mittal, a doctor with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation and the in-charge of the facility, said.
She further said, “I then inform the ASHA workers and surveillance officials who will visit the person’s home and assess if (s)he can be kept in home isolation.”
The centre, started on June 18, has tested over 1,000 patients so far, Mittal said. Another centre in Shaheen Bagh, which too started on June 18, sees nearly 100 patients daily.
On Tuesday, 16,952 Covid-19 tests were done in Delhi. Until now, over four lakh people have been tested for the virus infection in the national capital, officials said.