Now, sampling to be done by rural medical officers

Ludhiana: Punjab government has decided to hand over Covid-19 sampling and collection process to rural medical officers (RMOs) working under the department of rural development and panchayats.
The director, health and family welfare, Punjab, shot off a letter to all civil surgeons of Punjab to hand over the process of sampling to RMOs working under various zila parishads of Punjab. In continuation of the order, training will be imparted to community health officers, nurses and pharmacists.
The director wrote that three-day training of the above staff for RT PCR Covid-19 testing to be done and should be completed within 10 days. The ICMR has also come up with an online application of RT-PCR proforma, according to which details of the sample collected be directly sent online through an app, which is being updated from time to time. It has also updated the offline proformas, for which the whole staff is to be given training. The training will be conducted at flu comers and at least two individuals per batch will be trained.
Rural Medical Officers Association president Deepinder Bhasin said, “Rural doctors are already doing the sampling and collection process of Covid-19 cases. This seems to be updation of the training module but medical officers of the health department have been left out.”
Bhasin added, “The government is reposing full faith in the working of the rural doctors, who have been doing duty for Covid-19 round the clock for last three months. Medical officers of the health department also need to be trained, as 550 out of 1,186 posts of RMOs have been lying vacant for more than nine years. Besides, the health department has recruited more than 3,500 doctors in the past eight years. The rural dispensaries are being run by doctors with additional charges, which needs to be addressed. The rural dispensaries which had OPD catering to around 3.5 lakh patients per month is closed due to non-availability of rural medical officers in the dispensaries.