It is hard to believe that the lone laboratory in Chest Disease Hospital is lying closed for the last one year. There are laboratories in our health institutions but the trained personnel manning them are meagre in number not commensurate with the work load handled. Following outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, similarly the lone technician handling the laboratory was shifted to GMC, Jammu, say in the month of April to help the Microbiology Department so as to conduct RTPCR based COVID testing.
Since with the spread of the virus, the CD Hospital being designated as Level -2 COVID Hospital, both the IPD and OPD services were suspended for the routine patients, the laboratory too there, as such, became virtually of no utility and got closed. Now both the services having been restarted in the Hospital, the patients need the services of the laboratory but even though the patients are suffering due to closure of the laboratory as for routine tests, their samples are being sent to the GMC Hospital, no one seems to be concerned. In the interests of the suffering patients and to ensure the CD Hospital functioned normally, the concerned authorities need to look into the problem and have it resolved at the earliest.
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