CHANDIGARH: All hospitals will conduct rapid antigen tests (RAT) for their OPD visits, according to orders issued by the Union ministry of health recently.
Both Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32 and Government Multispecialty Hospital, Sector 16, have been conducting these tests on all visitors in OPDs. However, PGI, due to its massive footfall, conducts the test in every10th or15th patient after screening.
“It is a waste of resources to test each and every patient. They can be screened and only those must be tested after a doctor qualifies them after screening,” said a public health expert He said, “Recently, the Kerala government has stopped RAT in hospitals for those who had been vaccinated. The tests would be done only at discretion of doctors.” When GMCH had decided to resume its physical OPDs, those who had Covid vaccination were exempted initially . But that changed after the order. The RAT capacity of GMCH was 500 a day. It was increased to over thousands after physical OPDs. “It takes almost 15 minutes for each report to come, until then we have to wait in that area. Most of the times, it is crowded. There are ill patients susceptible to infections,” said Pooja Dubey, a city resident. Doctors in GMCH are trying to figure out ways when patient count will reach the usual 5,000 a day. “We might have to be selective and follow what PGI is doing. It is not feasible to test so many,” said a faculty member.
