To ensure COVID-19 pandemic does not come in the way of providing treatment to cancer patients and also to safeguard patients and staff from getting infected, the State-run Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology will start testing every patient and his/her attendant from next week. A similar system has already been put in place at Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences.
This comes in the wake of patients thronging the hospital despite being asked not to do so unless there is an emergency.
The tests will be done at the institutes’s outsourced Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory and only if patients test negative will they be taken in for treatment, institute Director C. Ramachandra told The Hindu on Wednesday. “Even if one positive patient is admitted or taken up for therapy, the entire hospital will be at risk. Hence, we now want to take only such patients who test negative and send the positive cases to dedicated COVID-19 hospitals,” the doctor said.
“The laboratory has PCR machines and is equipped to take up COVID tests. We are in the process of obtaining all the required approvals as per ICMR protocols,” said the Director.
“The plan is to set up a swab collection centre at the entrance. We will put up a marquee near the entrance where patients can wait after giving the samples. Although our patient load has reduced from the regular 1,500 a day to around 250, we want to make sure none of them are infected after coming to the hospital,” he said.
In the first week of March, the Director had asked patients to postpone non-emergency procedures as “delaying chemotherapy and radiotherapy for one or two weeks is better than contracting COVID-19.” However, it is inevitable for those developing breathing difficulty, bleeding, abdominal distension, difficulty in swallowing and severe pain to visit the hospital, he said.
On the system being followed at Jayadeva, its Director C.N. Manjunath said: “We are testing all in-patients just after admission and observing them for four-five days before taking them in for surgeries.”
Is it foolproof?
However, sources in the Health Department said as every patient who walks into a hospital may not be COVID-19 infected, the plan to test everyone is “unwarranted.”
“The best approach is to take appropriate precautions rather than depending on the tests as no test is foolproof. The patient may be negative at the time of collecting the samples and the staff may not follow precautions. But what if the patient tests positive after admission and the staff is under the impression he/she is negative? So, without categorising patients into negative or positive, hospital staff should cater to every patient taking all precautions that they would have taken if the patient was positive,” the sources added.
