Gurugram: 7 private labs get notices over ‘incomplete’ patients’ information

GURUGRAM: The health department on Thursday issued show-cause notices to all the seven private laboratories that have permission to do Covid tests for failing to provide complete addresses, contact numbers and identity proofs of people who have tested positive, and thus, hindering the process of contact tracing. The labs have been asked to reply within 48 hours explaining why no legal action should be taken against them for disobeying protocol.
“We have sent legal notices to seven private labs. They were found violating the norms. We observed that the private labs had incomplete data, mobile number, and address. They also failed to attach identity proof of the person before collecting samples for Covid-19 test. We have to follow the protocol before taking any action. We have asked them to reply within 48 hours, in case they fail to reply or repeat similar violations, strict action will be taken against them,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurugram.
The health department official pointed out that incomplete data and lack of identity proofs of patients are among the primary reasons that the rapid response teams have been unable to trace the Covid-19 patients and this has impeded contact tracing and monitoring patients who are supposed to be isolated.
This information gap is a cause for concern for the health authorities because more than 80% Covid-19 tests in Gurugram are conducted by private labs. In the last 15 days, the city has collected around 1,000 samples daily, of which, 600 are being processed by private labs.
So far, Gurugram has tested 36,419 samples, of which 29,202 were found negative.
“We had sent out similar legal notices to five of the private labs 10 days ago. We received their responses and they had assured us that they will fix the problem. However, our teams observed the same violations once again,” Yadav added.