Some healthcare facilities in the city have started carrying out “compulsory” rapid antigen tests on “high-risk groups” visiting hospitals, including elderly patients with co-morbidities and asymptomatic persons undergoing aerosol-generating interventions, after a Delhi government order on Sunday.
Other facilities are currently making arrangements for the same. Spokesperson of Max Hospital said they have started following the government directions and the patients will have to pay ₹1,450 for a test.
Medical Director of the Delhi government’s Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital (a non-COVID-19 treatment facility), Dr. P.S. Khatana, said the test will be free here.
“When a patient comes to the hospital, she/he first goes to the flu clinic and if he/she falls under the ‘high-risk groups’ then we test him/her at a sampling centre next to the flu clinic. The test gives the result in half an hour and the patient is admitted only after they test negative,” Mr. Khatana told The Hindu .
“All asymptomatic patients admitted or seeking admission of the following high-risk groups — patients undergoing chemotherapy, immunosuppressed patient [including HIV, patients with malignant disease, transplant patients, elderly patients [>65 years] with co-morbidities,” read some of the categories mentioned in Sunday’s order.
But many hospital are yet to procure the testing kits. “Procurement of the COVID-19 rapid antigen kit for in-house testing by the hospital is already in process. Till the kits are procured, various diagnostic laboratories are being contacted regarding feasibility of conducting the test by them within the hospital premises among the high-risk category patients,” said Pallavi Banerjee, Microbiologist and Infection Control Officer Indian Spinal Injuries Center, a private hospital.
Though the Ministry of Home Affair on June 21 had directed to conduct a comprehensive survey of Delhi by July 6 and the MHA later extended the date for the “door to door survey” , it is not happening, said officials. “We have been told that the door to door survey would yield desired result and asked to concentrate on contact tracing of positive cases,” a Delhi government official said. “We have been asked to do the survey in isolated cases and not in the whole of Delhi. Have not got an exact protocol,” a District Magistrate, who did not wish to be named, said.
