Telangana Government prod to corporate hospitals on suspected coronavirus cases
Hyderabad: Telangana Health Department had told all corporate and private hospitals, in no uncertain terms, to immediately refer patients having coronavirus related symptoms and abroad travel history to the government earmarked hospitals including Gandhi so that sample testing could be done and necessary steps could be taken without any delay.
This decision follows the manner in which a noted corporate hospital was found to have handled the case of the 24-year old techie who was infected with the deadly virus.
He was suffering from fever and the hospital doctors first treated him as an out-patient and later as an inpatient. According to senior government officials, the hospital sat on the case for more than a week and consequently number of persons who got in contact with him including doctors and other medical staff was high.
Had they joined the dots properly and quickly referred the case for coronavirus testing, the situation would have been so different, officials said, adding that explanation given by the concerned hospital for the delay was that they suspected the techie to be affected with Swine Flu and got the test done and it came it out negative.
Commenting on this subject, Health Minister Eatala Rajender stated that representatives of the corporate and private hospitals were called up for the meeting he held on Tuesday. He said that strict instructions were given to them in this regard.
Director (Health) Dr G Srinivas Rao said that all corporate hospitals have been told to collect travel history of patients coming with related symptoms without fail and also set up a separate OP facility to treat such cases.
Meanwhile, Upasana Konidela from Apollo Hospitals Group posted a tweet on this issue. She stated that Apollo Hospitals, Secunderabad detected a case of coronavirus due to strict screening protocols.
The staff that cared for him are in quarantine and highest standards of infection control are being adopted, she added.