Punjab: Rural and ayush medical officers to be trained to test

CHANDIGARH: To bring daily Covid-19 sample collection at par with the capacity of its testing laboratories, the Punjab government has decided to press ayush medical officers and rural medical officers into duty for collecting swabs for testing.
Punjab’s testing rate has steadily increased since the outbreak of the virus, but it has not been able to fully utilise the overall testing capacity of its laboratories, largely due to shortage of trained human resource.
According to the official figures, cumulative samples collected and tested have gone up by a daily average rate of 4.9% and 4.8%, respectively, in the last one week. Punjab’s testing rate per million population stands at 3,819 against the national average of 3,359.
There are four government-run institutes -- GMCH, Patiala (2,000), GMC, Amritsar (2,000), GGMCH, Faridkot (2,000) and PGIMER, Chandigarh (60) – and two private laboratories – DMC, Ludhiana (150), and Core Labs (500) — having a daily collective capacity of 6,810 tests. According to data compiled by the health department from June 1 to June 6, only 32,701 tests were conducted against the overall collective capacity of 40,860 tests.
To overcome the shortage of medical staff required for collection of samples, the health department has roped in ayush medical officers and rural medical officers for collection and packing of swabs for reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) Covid-19 testing.
In a communication to all civil surgeons, the department has issued directions for imparting training for collection and packing of swabs for Covid-19 testing to all ayush medical officers and rural medical officers. Around 750 doctors of rural department are working under civil surgeons of their respective districts while about 450 ayurveda doctors are also at the disposal of the health department.
The department has proposed a three-day training of RMO and AMO under the supervision of medical officer\microbiologist at flu corners and at least two individuals per batch be trained. The training is to be completed within 10 days and civil surgeons have been directed to submit compliance reports. The department has already started training community health officer’s pharmacists and staff nurses for collection and packing of Covid-19 samples.