SHILLONG: As the positive cases continue to pile up in the state and the returnees are confined in different quarantine Centres well exceeding the required two days, the fragility of the system has come to the fore. the Health Department wants more and more RTPCR Labs to be developed in the state to deal with the situation.
There was anger, anxiety and even panic among the returnees who were unprepared for this prolonged quarantine. Initially told that the institutional quarantine would be for a couple of days, some of them have been held up for ten days because the government is unable to release them without test report. Quite a few of them are lodged in hotels at their own expense. The inordinate delay is giving rise to panic among the relations.
The Shillong Times on Saturday spoke to some people who are in different quarantine Centres and COVID Hospitals in the city and waiting for their samples to be declared even after 6-7 days of stay.
A woman who returned from Guwahati and under quarantine in one of the quarantine Centres said that she was stranded in Guwahati and she reached the state on July 10.
“ When we inquired from the authorities they told us that it would be mandatory for us to stay in the centre for two three days till the time results of our samples are out,” she said
She lamented that five days passed but still there was no word from the authorities about her samples.
“On Friday, the concerned doctor told me that they would take my second samples and they took my samples and today morning, I got the report of my first test,” she said.
Soon after getting her first report, she also got the results of her second samples within few hours. “ I am wondering why they took five days for first samples whereas the results of the second sample was declared in few hours,” she asked.
Echoing similar views, another person who returned from New Delhi and is under quarantine in NEHU said that he visited Shillong on Sunday last and on Monday, his samples were taken in Shillong Civil Hospital. “We have not heard anything since then and the authorities are unresponsive,” he said adding there are around 60 people in NEHU quarantine Centre waiting for their samples.
Similarly, another patient who tested positive in the city lamented his contacts who were traced gave their samples on July 14 but their results were declared only on Saturday afternoon. He said the samples of his family were also taken on July 15 as part of the contact tracing and they were still awaiting reports.
“Such delays makes the situation cause for panic,” he said. The official position is at the moment can test upto 800 samples in a day as NEIGRIHMS every day is testing around 600 samples followed by Pasteur and Tura Civil Hospital which is testing around 100 samples each every day.
According to informed sources, NEIGRIHMS was over-stretched, while Pasteur Institute was ill-equipped to handle the pressure.
There was a huge shortage of manpower in Pasteur for handling the large number of cases that have been pouring in everyday. “There is no proper planning and far less monitoring”, an inside source said. It seems nobody in particular is responsible for keeping a tab on the situation of under-performance of both NEIGRIMHS and Pasteur.
When asked what is leading to the delay in declaring the results of the samples which are sent to NEIGRIHMS, the officiating director of the institute, Dr P Bhattacharya revealed that it takes anything between 12-18 hours for the results to come out in RTPCR. “ When we find that the results are not clear, we go for a second run which takes another 12-18 hours,” he said
Refusing to admit that the NEIGRIHMS was the cause of bottleneck, Bhattacharya said that inaccurate samples are sent for second run in lots which takes some more time.
The DHS (MI) Dr Aman War said that the department has to prioritize the samples as they have to take the samples of several returnees and contact tracing besides NEIGRIHMS is also focusing on their samples. “The institute will do the test of the samples from outside only after testing the samples from within the institute,” he explained.
“ Then we have samples coming from both the Districts of Jaintia Hills and the entire Khasi Hills,” he said while citing an example that in last 24 hours, 287 samples have been taken in Shillong Civil Hospital alone.
“ The more RTPCR labs we have, the better it is for us,” he said while adding that once the entry point closed down for a week, situation would ease as far as sample collection is concern and the department would also rejuvenate itself .Stating that the delay in receiving the reports is because there is a huge backlog of samples which are required to be tested, he added that NEIGRIHMS cannot run the testing machine for the whole 24 hours.
Now the Department have made an arrangement that samples from East Khasi Hills, West Jaiñtia Hills and East Jaiñtia Hills would be sent to NEIGRIHMS while the samples from Ri-Bhoi, West Khasi Hills and South West Khasi Hills will be sent to Pasteur Institute.
On the question on the required number of days for returnees to quarantine, he said that the returnees will have to do 14 days mandatory quarantine in addition to the days which they spent in the institutional quarantine while waiting for their results of their samples to be out.