JOIN USNon-Covid-19 cases at disadvantage
After a series of discussions, private hospitals in the city have agreed to provide 50 per cent of their beds, which translates to about 2,000 beds, for Covid-19 treatment.
The government has assured private hospital staff that its group insurance would be extended to them since they are working on the Covid frontlines.
Dr Sanjiv Lewin, chief of medical services, St John’s Medical College Hospital, says non-Covid-19 patients in need of emergency treatment and hospitalisation are now at a disadvantage since the government is commissioning private hospitals for Covid-19 treatment.
A senior doctor at Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute says emergency non-coronavirus cases are taken up at government hospitals only after a Covid-19 test.
Most private hospitals quickly check for Covid-19 infection at time of admission and then decide which part of the hospital the patient goes to, says Dr Naresh Bhat, former president of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology.
“A transit ‘potentially Covid’ ward is used for newly admitted patients till the results come. The patient may have to wait for a few hours to two days, depending on the hospital and testing protocols,” he says.
Procedures, costs
Dr Bhat, says the Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction or RT-PCR, used to detect coronavirus from a nasopharyngeal (nasal secretions) sample, costs about Rs 4,500 and results take up to six hours.
He says the results may take two days, depending on the time of sampling and where it is processed.
The Genexpert test is another test. It costs Rs 4,500 and delivers results in 90 minutes. This is available in many government hospitals as the same equipment is used for tuberculosis treatment. However, this test kit is in limited supply and controlled by the government.
The CNAT gives results within 60 to 90 minutes, but it is not widely available and results are difficult to interpret. “The latter two are called rapid tests and not everyone has access to them,” he says.
However, Dr Lewin says pre-intervention testing using the RT-PCR swab test must take into consideration the virus incubation period of five days. A test result is most reliable on day six or seven of the infection, he says.
Rapid Antigen Tests may not be able to factor this in. Tests are essential resources that must be judiciously and responsibly done as they are the basis of all clinical decisions, he observes.
Inappropriate orders for tests clogs the system and causes backlogs. Rapid testing kits and PCR technology are not available everywhere. This is yet another result of inadequate health system budgets, he notes.
Many come with trauma
Dr Pratima Murthy, professor and head department of psychiatry, says patients at the hospital already have other chronic problems such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and diabetes.
“Some of them come with trauma and many of them are wandering patients who pick up other diseases,” she says.
The hospital has an infection surveillance system in place and makes sure patients are divided into various risk categories and then advised appropriately, she told Metrolife.
At Nimhans, are trauma and emergency patients treated immediately while following all the measures needed to test for corona.