SHILLONG: One person’s “shock” turned into relief while another’s relief was short-lived as the SMSes they received from the Health department on the test results of their samples turned out to be wrong.
The department has started using SMS service to inform people about the status of their samples, but glitches have surfaced.
Director of Health Services (MI), Dr. Aman War admitted that there were minor glitches while sharing reports of the RT-PCR tests.
“We are sending the information through SMS and, yes, there were two cases where wrong SMSes were shared. But this was immediately rectified,” War said.
A person who received one such SMS said he was informed that he had tested positive.
“The news came as a huge shock to me and I could not even inform my family members about this, and while I was packing my things to get myself admitted in the hospital, I got another call to inform they had sent me a wrong a message. They even had the audacity to say that they had committed the mistake since they were experimenting”, he said on condition of anonymity.
He said if such glitches could happen with people in Shillong what would be the impact if such false reports are shared with people in rural areas.
“The government is claiming that it is fully prepared to deal with any kind of eventuality. But reality is they are still experimenting which is shocking,” he added.
Meanwhile, sources informed that there was another person who also received a wrong SMS. The person tested positive but he was informed that he was negative. When contacted, Health and Family Welfare Minister Alexander Laloo Hek offered his apology to the persons concerned for the inconvenience caused.
“We are going through very troubled times and we are trying very hard to manage the situation. However, this is not an excuse for someone’s mistake,” Hek said.
He further stated that he has realised that there is a need to ramp up the entire machinery of the Health department to be able to serve the people better and to ensure that everybody remains safe, secure and get factual information with regard to COVID-19.
