Strange are the ways of the State health department, on one hand it considers the report of National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) authentic for swine flu and on other hand it trashes the report of a lab duly certified by the NCDC for swine flu test.
On March 30, a female patient from Saharanpur was admitted in Sri Mahant Indiresh Hospital with symptoms of swine flu.
The hospital has an ultra modern molecular lab certified by NCDC to conduct swine flu test. In this lab the sample of this patient was tested and the report confirmed swine flu in the patient. This patient succumbed to the disease on April 02. The health department however is not accepting the report of the molecular lab and not listing the death of the patient as occurring due to swine flu. Moreover the department has also shot off a warning letter to the hospital. The Pioneer is in possession of the letter issued by NCDC to the Principal SGRR Medical College in which it has approved the molecular lab to conduct H1 N1 influenza virus tests.
The additional director of NCDC, Sunil Gupta had written this letter on April 01 last year and a copy of the letter is marked to Joint Secretary Government of Uttarakhand. The NCDC has given similar approval to many labs in the country and not every state sends its suspected swine flu samples to lab of New Delhi.
It appears that there is serious lack of communication between the State administration and health department on this very important issue.
The spokesperson of the Mahant Indiresh hospital and SGRR medical college Bhupendra Raturi said that the lab of the hospital was approved to conduct swine flu tests after proper inspection by the officials of state health department.
Incidentally the molecular diagnostic lab of the Mahant Indiresh hospital is the only facility in the State to test the swine flu. After the approval of NCDC, the hospital tried to get into an understanding with the State health department to send its samples for testing of swine flu. One of the major benefits of local testing could have been prompt reporting of the samples.
However the understanding could not be reached as the health department does not have to pay anything for the samples tested at NCDC. In such a scenario the health department is continuing to send suspected samples of swine flu to New Delhi from where the report takes at least six to eight days to come.
When contacted, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Dehradun, Dr Y S Thapliyal said that the department follows a guideline which clearly states that only the report of NCDC New Delhi would be considered authentic to conduct test of swine flu test. He said that the hospital should have informed about the suspected patient of the swine flu to the department.
The CMO confirmed that the hospital is being issued a stern warning on this gross negligence.