Hyderabad: Private hospital doctors tap at ICMR door for Covid tests

Hyderabad: Worried over cases of asymptomatic patients visiting the private hospitals and much later the same patients leading to the death of doctors and medical staff and closure of hospitals for a certain period of time, doctors and their managements are knocking on the door of the ICMR to come to their rescue.

More than 500 doctors from Telangana and medical practitioners running private hospitals, that are mostly below 300-bed strength, have written letters to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to bring in new guidelines in this corona pandemic.

They want ICMR to give permission to private hospitals to conduct Covid-19 tests, if they wish to, for a patient visiting their hospitals and their advice is adhered to by the testing hospitals or labs.

It has been noticed that few government designated testing facilities were ignoring requests for Covid-19 tests for individuals if they were asymptomatic.

Even an asymptomatic person can act as a carrier and can infect others visiting the hospital, especially the vulnerable age groups thus easily risking their lives, the private doctors point out.

Cases of private doctors getting infected while discharging their duty and later succumbing have been reported in few places in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state also.

With corona cases increasing day by day across the country, the Centre has to look into the safety and well-being of the health workforce across the country, the doctors reasoned.

Not only lives of other patients and healthcare professionals and workers are at risk, but these hospitals would also be hit financially if they were told to close services for four weeks at a stretch if any patient who visited there turns out positive later.

Recently, Jeevan Sai Hospital in Vanasthalipuram on city outskirts was ordered to close services for a month or so after it came to light a person who visited with related symptoms tested positive. Majority of the hospital staff were put under home quarantine for four weeks following the development.

According to Dr V Rakesh, president of Telangana Network Hospitals Association, doctors and medical staff could handle the situation better and take necessary precautions if they know Covid-19 test results beforehand as they prepare for major surgeries done on some patients if not all.

He pointed out that the health staff working in private hospitals is very concerned as they are presently conducting surgeries without knowing whether a patient being operated on is Covid-19 positive or negative.

The private doctors are looking up to the government and have taken up this issue with the Union Health Ministry in their regular video conferences over corona situation in all states.