Uproar in Dwarka as sole pvt lab is stopped from testing

New Delhi: Resident welfare associations from the Dwarka sub-city are complaining that the only functional private centre located in Sector 19 has been stopped from corona testing. The group housing society federation has written to the lieutenant governor and other officials concerned to intervene in the matter, so that the testing for the novel coronavirus can be restarted.
Sudha Sinha, president of Co-operative Group Housing Societies, said while Dwarka was witnessing a large number of Covid-19 cases, the only private lab catering to the area had been removed from the list causing huge inconvenience to the residents.
“The lab was barred from corona testing because it carried out tests of asymptomatic patients. When every alternate society of Dwarka is affected by Covid-19, most of the residents are dejected at the present state of affairs,” Sinha claimed.
RWAs say that the decision to stop the lab from conducting Covid-19 tests will increase the burden on the area’s government hospital.
The letter, which has also been sent to the DM, CM and health minister, states that patients are struggling to obtain medical support as the only lab at Sector-19 has been debarred from conducting Covid-19 tests. “No resident of Dwarka should be deprived of any facility he/she wants to use. We demand that guidelines be modified and complete facilities of testing medication and hospitalisation of even asymptomatic cases be made available,” the letter reads.
Meanwhile, the testing has also been affected at the north corporation-run Hindu Rao Hospital which was forced to stop testing from June 3. After a total halt in corona testing at Hindu Rao Hospital for a few days, the civic body has now sought cooperation from the army’s RR Hospital to restart limited testing for at least in-house patients.
Senior doctors at the tertiary care facility said that following directions from Delhi government, the hospital was forced to stop sending samples to National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) from June 3 onwards. Now, the tie-up with RR Hospital is being used to process high priority samples of admitted patients and healthcare staff.
“The hospital has started sending limited samples to RR Hospital as a temporary arrangement till NCDC is allowed to take samples of Hindu Rao Hospital in full strength. We are sending a few samples everyday. We are giving priority to our admitted patients,” said a senior corporation official.
A doctor working in the sample collection centre at Hindu Rao Hospital rued that in the past few days, they were not able to take samples of even healthcare workers. “Recently, doctors from Rajan Babu Hospital had come for the corona testing, but we had to turn them away,” the doctor added.