HYDERABAD: Covid-19 patients here and elsewhere in Telangana continued to face chaotic conditions at several hospitals and testing centres, where thousands of people waited anxiously for their Rt-PCR test results. This, among other issues, is threatening to further complicate the already strained Covid-19 situation in the state.
While the state continues to reel under an ever-increasing Covid-19 caseload, the battle on the ground level is appearing to get tougher. Hospitals, including the government’s big facilities with 1000-plus beds -- the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences, and Gandhi Hospital -- are not in a position to cope with the patient inflow. Doctors at both hospitals reported on Wednesday that they were running out of beds. Many private hospitals have already thrown their hands up.
TIMS, touted as a model hospital that will rival the very best, curiously does not even have a high-resolution CT scan machine. This is essential equipment as scans from the machine form a vital part of the Covid-19 identification and management process.
While the number of patients diagnosed with Covid-19 rose to more than 46,000, many who lined up in hundreds at the Covid-19 testing centres were sent away as the centers ran out of test kits, mostly the Rapid Antigen Test kits, something Telangana continues to rely on heavily. This is despite their poor reliability. It is well-established that they have only about 50 per cent accuracy, and dogged by false-positive results.
Meanwhile, thousands of people who have given samples for the more reliable Rt-PCR test for Covid-19 diagnosis are being forced to wait for two to three days for the results. The personnel collecting samples at some testing centers said that the online system where a person can track the test result was not working properly.
With more and more of the cases and people lining up for Rt-PCR tests, the system is now overwhelmed. The health department said on Tuesday evening that 6,242 test results were pending in the state.
Some hospitals have begun sending SOS to the government that they might soon be running out of oxygen. The staff at Gandhi Hospital too is warning of such an eventuality, but the hospital superintendent said, “Whenever the liquid oxygen tanks get emptied, they are refilled.”
