With Tiruppur district recording over 100 COVID-19 cases every day in a nearly consistent manner, the Health Department recently set up five triage screening centres across the district.
According to Deputy Director of Health Services (Tiruppur) K. Jegadeesh Kumar, the government hospitals at Udumalpet, Dharapuram and Palladam, the old Tiruppur Government Hospital building near the Old Bus Terminus in Tiruppur and Maharaja Engineering College in Avinashi are the centres available in the district.
Each of these centres would have one medical officer and staff nurse to screen the COVID-19 positive patients. “If the patient is asymptomatic, we will refer the case to sanitary inspector or health inspector, who will check their houses as to whether it can accommodate the patient,” Dr. Kumar said. If the residence of the asymptomatic patient had the required facilities, he/she would be allowed for home quarantine for 14 days.
However, if the residence did not meet the requirements, the patient would be sent for isolation at a COVID-19 Care Centre (CCC). Two wedding halls in Tiruppur Corporation limits had been converted into CCCs with a capacity of 150 beds each and similar arrangements had been made in other parts of the district, he said.
If the patient showed COVID-19 symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath and loss of taste and smell, the screening centre would refer them for admission at either Tiruppur Government Medical College Hospital or taluk-level government hospitals. Those patients with mild symptoms would either be hospitalised or sent to a CCC as per the discretion of the medical officer in the triage screening centre concerned, Dr. Kumar noted.
According to Health Department sources, 2,281 beds are available in Tiruppur district for COVID-19 patients. This includes the Tiruppur Government Medical College Hospital, taluk-level hospitals and CCCs. Out of this, 577 patients have been admitted in the district as on Thursday.
With the establishment of 19 sample collection centres across Tiruppur district, about 2,500 swab samples are being lifted and tested every day, according to Dr. Kumar.
