Govt brings Nuh CMO to Gurugram, shifts JS Punia out

GURUGRAM: The Haryana government transferred chief medical officer (CMO) Dr JS Punia on Wednesday as the city is witnessing a steep rise in Covid-19 cases. He will be replaced by Dr Virender Yadav, who is the CMO of Nuh.
Dr Yadav will take over as the CMO of Gurugram on Thursday. At present, Nuh where he was the CMO, has only 26 active cases and 78 patients have already been discharged after recovery. So far, the district has 104 cases whereas Gurgaon has 2,546 Covid-19 patients.
Apart from the fact that the city is adding around 200 new cases daily, it also witnessed people alleging delay in test results, absence of beds in hospitals, private hospitals denying treatment to people and the health department transferring pregnant Covid-19 women to Faridabad due to absence of neonatal care unit in the city.
On May 26, a two-day-old girl died at ESIC Hospital in Faridabad, the youngest Covid-19 patient in Haryana to succumb to the infection. Her mother who was tested positive was transferred to Faridabad from Gurgaon after she was denied admission to private hospitals in the district. The health department did not have any facility to make arrangements for the Covid patient’s delivery.
Also, the health department failed to file Covid test results of several patients. Delay in getting the samples tested held up the quarantine period of primary and secondary contacts, leading to rise in cases and infection rate.
Dr Yadav aims at fixing delay in test results in city. Speaking to TOI, he said, “I will be joining on Thursday and we need to solve the issue of delay in filing reports of test results. The report should reach us within 24 to 36 hours. As several results are delayed, the infection rate is rising every day. We need to strengthen the government machinery.” He also plans to change the sampling technique. “We will conduct active surveillance and screening in hotspots and the areas that could become hotspots. We will also change the sampling technique in Gurugram.”