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4 test positive at Advanced Cancer Institute in Bathinda
Despite reservations by health experts about using the institute to treat pandemic patients, the state authorities started a 25-bed, level-2 facility with oxygen support on April 30
A day after Punjab health minister OP Soni said that cancer treatment is going on smoothly at the Bathinda-based Advanced Cancer Institute, officials reported that four people have tested positive for Covid-19 at ACI.
Sharing data of the outpatient department, Soni had on Monday said that 402 patients were registered at the OPD from May 1 to 8 after the Covid care centre was started at the ACI. He assured cancer patients that full care is being taken for their treatment.
However, four persons, including three personnel of ACI hospital staff, are among four people who have tested positive since Monday. The ACI authorities were alerted about the infection status of the two staffers, including a laboratory technician, on Tuesday morning. An ambulance driver and a woman patient tested positive on Monday and the woman was admitted to the isolation ward.
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Healthcare experts have already cautioned that starting the Covid care facility on the second floor of the ACI could cause the virus to spread at the institute. “Paramedic and technical staff of the ACI are working in the Covid ward. The cancer institute’s laboratory is also being used for examining samples of Covid patients. Since there is an unchecked intermingling of people in the Covid care facility and the cancer hospital, there is a possibility of people at the ACI catching coronavirus infection,” said a doctor at the cancer hospital, requesting anonymity.
Despite reservations by the ACI management and health experts about using the institute to treat pandemic patients, the state authorities started a 25-bed level 2 facility with oxygen support on April 30.
Sources said the average occupancy of Covid patients remains between 18-22.
ACI director Dr Deepak Arora said he would take up the matter with authorities. “We are concerned about the health of our cancer patients. The line of treatment compromises the immunity level of a cancer patient, and they remain vulnerable to any infection,” said Dr Arora.
OPD open but surgeries remain suspended
The ACI is a constituent of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, and caters to cancer patients from Bathinda and adjoining districts of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.
Dr Arora said in view of the patients’ needs, the outpatient department (OPD), chemotherapy and radiotherapy services were resumed but surgeries remain suspended indefinitely.
The ACI sources said that the state authorities should have taken domain experts on board while turning an exclusive cancer treatment institute into a Covid hospital.
Delaying therapy or surgery not an option
They said that doctors were unable to start the new treatment schedule. A doctor said it would be unfair to conclude normalcy at ACI on the basis of the OPD footfall.
“Cancer patients need a specialised treatment, and they hardly have the option to delay therapies or surgery. After resuming the OPD on Friday, we got about 100 patients on Monday, one-third of the patient load in the last few months of the pandemic. It reflects their urgent dependency on experts amid the pandemic but the doctors at ACI are unable to start new treatment, considering their exposure to the high-infection environment,” said another cancer expert at the hospital.
The experts say the state authorities should take over any public complex or educational institute in Bathinda and start the level-2 centre where oxygen supply facility is needed.
