Some Health Department officials in Kozhikode recently tried to clear a backlog of data entry on the antigen tests being conducted on suspected COVID-19 infected persons in the district. But apparently it turned out to be an additional burden for them.
It all began when discrepancies were noticed in the number of antigen test kits supplied to the department staff and the tests actually done on suspected infected persons. The number of test kits supplied, the number of tests, and the number of people tested positive and negative for the virus were not matching, an official, who wished not to be named, told The Hindu . It was later revealed that the details of only those who tested positive were being uploaded onto the official portal and people tested negative were being left out. A section of officials claimed that they did not have enough technical staff to do the job and the work was thus kept on hold.
The issue was subsequently taken up by the higher officials, including the Director of Health Services, District Medical Officer as well as the District Surveillance Officer (DSO). N. Rajendran, DSO, and Additional District Medical Officer, asked the staff to clear the backlog by September 18 and “ensure real-time data entry” in future. When the shortage of technical staff was pointed out, it was suggested that the help of computer instructors in schools could be utilised as classes are yet to fully resume there. This proved to be a double burden for the Health Department staff.
For example, a municipality in the district reportedly hired five such computer instructors to upload the data. However, the health staff had to spend a lot of time to train these people to upload the data correctly. They had to depute one staff solely for this “training” too. “What we could have completed on our own spending some extra hours in office is now doubling our work load,” the official added.
