It has been five times since June 15 that Navvya, a lab technician of Kollamogaru Primary Health Centre in Sullia taluk of Dakshina Kannada, and three of her colleagues, Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery Chandravati and Accredited Social Health Activists Yashoda and Hemalatha, have walked across a swollen stream on the makeshift wooden bridge to reach a hamlet in Idyadka village to collect 357 throat and nasal swab samples.
It was their fifth visit in the third week of July amid heavy rain that caught the attention of Health and Family Welfare Minister K. Sudhakar a few days ago. “I appreciate the commitment of the health staff (in checking COVID-19 in the rural areas),” he tweeted.
Ms. Navvya, who has been with the PHC since August last year, said that their visits to the hamlet with three families came after 27 persons tested positive for COVID-19.
“Like in other rural areas, people from the hamlet too were diffident to come to the PHC for tests. We had to reach their houses to collect samples,” she said. After going a distance in a four-wheeler, Ms. Navvya and her colleagues had to walk across the stream to reach the hamlet.
With telecommunication network signals being poor, Ms. Navvya said that they had to search for vantage points in the hamlet for uploading from their smartphone data about samples collected. These samples are coded at the PHC and then sent for tests at the KVG Medical College in Sullia. “We are happy over the words of encouragement from the Health Minister,” said Ms. Navvya, who has been serving as lab technician for four years now.
District Nodal Officer for COVID-19 H. Ashok said that Ms. Navvya is among the health staff at primary health centres who have been working hard in collecting samples from houses in remote areas of the district. “It is the effective ring surveillance by these personnel that has played a key role in checking COVID-19 in the district,” he said.
