The psychiatry emergency services ward at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) has been sealed for fumigation and sanitisation after a patient brought there tested positive for COVID-19.
Psychiatry emergency services will now operate from the adjacent Casualty building. Male patients, who require short-stay care, will be admitted at the Centre for Addiction Medicine male ward, while female patients will be in Pavilion 4 on the same premises. This arrangement will be on till Tuesday, after which services will resume in the sanitised building, institute authorities said.
NIMHANS Director B.N. Gangadhar told The Hindu on Sunday that a 34-year-old woman with a mental health disorder requiring emergency care was brought to the hospital on Friday. She was admitted for observation and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 although she did not show any symptoms, he said.
She was brought to the ward by the police after she was found wandering around in Gurappanapalya (BTM Layout) on Friday. She was tested as she came from a high-risk area, and her result came back positive on Saturday night. Subsequently, the shifting and sanitisation process began, he said.
Around 50 patients in the ward and staff who were on duty during the period when the woman was in the ward are being evaluated and quarantined, he said.
Sources said it was not known that the patient was from a hotspot at the time of admission as the police had not informed them. The doctors felt the need to test her and collected her swab samples after learning that she came from a high-risk area. “Although we followed the normal screening procedure of thermal scanning and more, she could not be identified initially as a suspected case of COVID-19 as she was asymptomatic,” a source said.
While the patient has been sent to Victoria Hospital, her mother, who was also traced, has been sent to Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital for testing.
Sources said two staff members from the laboratory and medical records section of the institute, who had a travel history to Tamil Nadu, had tested positive a few days ago and were under treatment.
Teleconsultation
Although outpatient services at NIMHANS were shut down during the lockdown period and resumed only on June 1, patients were followed up with regularly through teleconsultation. “Our doctors made 15,000 calls for regular follow-up with patients and provided them consultation. Emergency services continued without any disruption,” said NIMHANS Director B.N. Gangadhar.