Private hospitals seek pre-surgery Covid-19 testing of patients

Prabin Kalita | TNN | Updated: May 5, 2020, 13:47 IST

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GUWAHATI: After Assam government allowed re-opening of private medical clinics and outpatient departments (OPD) from Monday in green zone districts, private nursing homes fear that without government guidelines on pre-surgery or pre-hospitalisation screening of patients, the lives of doctors and nursing staff stand compromised.
The Indian Medical Association's Assam state branch has written a letter to health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma seeking his immediate intervention to either facilitate testing of patients going for surgery or hospitalization or allow private establishments to start Covid-19 testing on their own. "IMA requests the Assam government to please arrange for pre-intervention, pre-surgery screening of those cases in existing testing set-ups or allowing serological viral screening in coordination with ICMR," the letter read. It added, "All health establishments will adhere to routine screening for fever and contact history, hand hygiene etc., but for the cases requiring surgeries or intervention, some sort of testing to rule out Covid-19 is required for the safety of patient, doctors, health care workers and their families."
IMA further informed that it has already noticed that many doctors and healthcare workers have tested positive for the virus, resulting in quarantining of not only personnel, but hospitals too.
The IMA said, "Responsibility of negligence will also come if the patient is found to be Covid-positive later on. Moreover the already immune compromised patient will be subjected to added co-morbidity with an elective surgery, or a post-surgery febrile or sore-throat episode will invite a lot of questions and an environment of worries and fear." It added that considering the complete infection prevention and control (IPC) protocols of such patients, it was not practically possible to provide PPEs for all people associated with the operation theatres and wards till the patient is discharged because of financial and supply constraints.