City govt plans to streamline diagnostic tests for patients

The Delhi government is planning to come up with five mother laboratories in the capital to streamline diagnostic tests for patients.

The services for all tests will be scaled up in these five laboratories. These laboratories will be identified in tertiary care hospitals in five regions.

“Several tests are currently not available at hospitals. Patients wait in queues for hours and then come to know of the unavailability of the kit. Now, we want to streamline the entire process,” said Health Minister Satyendar Jain.

“The idea is to boost the infrastructure of laboratories at five existing locations in big hospitals. These laboratories will be open round the clock and offer patients the most basic and the sophisticated services alike,” said Jain.

Diagnostic tests at the other primary care hospitals will be done away with at a later stage. “These will only offer diagnostic tests for emergency patients. This is a major step towards decongestion of hospitals,” said Jain.

Recently, several hospitals have reported the non-availability of basic diagnostic tests due to lack of equipment, supply of kits or due to inadequate manpower.
In the last few months, resident doctors have gone on strike demanding better infrastructure in hospitals.

While doctors at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital had reported the non-availability of basic services like diabetes test, the X-ray services at Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital was not working for months.

Recently, patients at GB Pant Hospital and Hedgewar Hospital had also complained lack of basic services after the staff were reportedly on leave.

“The staff will be recruited from existing hospitals and trained further to handle all kinds of tests. Fresh tendering will be carried out for procuring equipment. The commissioning of the laboratories will be complete mostly by May, 2016,” said an official in the Health Department.

In another decision, the government is also planning to keep operation theatres functional in state-run hospitals on Saturdays, according to a source.

Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital and Sanjay Gandhi Hospital, among others are the first few hospitals where the OTs will be made functional on Saturdays in the first phase.