NT NETWORK Panaji

Dean of Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) Dr S M Bandekar on Monday said that a “wrong picture” is being portrayed by mainstream media and in social media that patients were dying in GMC due to lack of oxygen supply during the dark hours of 2 am and 6 am.

He said that GMC is fully equipped with all required facilities to treat COVID-19 patients including medical oxygen and urged patients not to delay their visit to the hospital.

“The deaths are spread all over 24 hours. There is a perception amongst the public that patients die during the dark hours. You have to remove this perception. Everything is available in GMC and we are here to help you,” Dr Bandekar said.
Backing the dean was Health secretary Ravi Dhawan, who said that such reports send a wrong message to the public and that compels them to seek COVID-19 treatment in other facilities.

“When their health worsens they land up in GMC and the doctors are not able to give their best as they come late,” he said.
Dr Bandekar and the Health Secretary had no answers when asked whether Health Minister Vishwajit Rane was wrong in saying that there were deaths during “dark hours” and that it could be linked to insufficient supply of oxygen.

He informed that soon GMC will have another liquid medical oxygen storage tank having a capacity of 6,000 litres.
“There is good chance that Goa might have seen the peak of the second wave of the pandemic. I think state epidemiologist is the right person to comment on this, let’s wait for another four days and then we can make a conclusive statement,” Dhawan said.
The state government may not create its own genome testing facility at the GMC, as the ICMR has come out with a new protocol anticipating that the facility maybe “misused” by states.

“We were planning to have our own machines but now ICMR has come up with their own guidelines, as they don’t want that genomic sequencing, to be misused by anybody. We have circulated the protocol to our nodal officers and if they find that genomic sequencing is required in any patients then they have to follow the criteria and sent it to NIV and now NIV will respond immediately,” the GMC dean said.