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Gzb health dept finds anomalies in Covid-19 count as hospitals don’t update data on state portal
Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad health department has found that a number of the district’s inactive coronavirus (Covid-19) disease cases were still reflecting as active
Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad health department has found that a number of the district’s inactive coronavirus (Covid-19) disease cases were still reflecting as active cases on the state portal even though they had been cured and discharged from hospitals, its officials told HT.
During an exercise conducted Wednesday, health department officials contacted about 450 patients, which were listed on the state portal as active Covid-19 patients, and found that a majority of them had already been discharged from hospitals but still reflected as active patients in records. These records are accessible to every hospital in the district via login IDs and passwords, and have to be updated daily with the number of patients admitted or discharged.
Till July 8, the Ghaziabad district had the most number of cases among all 75 districts in Uttar Pradesh, with 1,477 active Covid-19 cases, according to the state portal. According to the report of the state control room on Wednesday, the district was the only one in the state to have more than 1,000 active cases to its tally and accounted for almost 14% of the 9,980 active cases in the state, till July 8.
“The alarming rise in the number of cases was a growing concern. So, we roped in a team and pulled out a list of about 450 patients from the portal, who were slated to be at certain Ghaziabad hospitals. Then, we began telephoning the patients. We were surprised when they told us that they have already been discharged and are at home, which is how we came to know that some government and private hospitals in the district are still not updating data of discharged patients on to the portal,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer, Ghaziabad.
He said now, officials are taking up corrections and updating the figures on the state portal. He added that when teams spoke to patients, they found that some had been discharged as far back as 15-20 days ago.
According to the latest discharge guidelines issued by the state government on June 19, if any asymptomatic patient shows no symptoms, he/she can be discharged without undergoing any test on the tenth day from their date of admission. However, such patients will have to remain in home quarantine for seven days after being discharged from the hospital.
According to officials, the recovery rate of L1 category patients ranges from eight to 16 days while the L2 and L3 patients, having moderate to critical conditions, need full recovery before they can be discharged.
“Since all government and private hospitals have login IDs and passwords over the portal, they are supposed to make immediate entries. Now, we are trying to rectify the anomaly and hope that our discharge rate goes up and the number of active cases comes down. If need be, we will also issue show-cause notices to the concerned officials and hospitals otherwise the issue could be repeated in future,” Dr Gupta added.
Going by the health department’s figures for Ghaziabad, from a discharge rate of 66.66% discharge rate with a total of 66 patients up to April 30, it came down to 41.04% with a total of 2,612 cases till July 8. Likewise, the rate of active patients, at 33.33% till April 30, climbed to 56.54% by July 8.
On the other hand, the rate of discharge of patients for the state stood at 65.25% out of a total of 31,156 cases till July 8, according to state figures.
“Apart from this, we received complaints from some asymptomatic patients who were lodged at private hospitals that they were kept in hospitals for a period of about 14-15 days. After one such complaint was received recently, I intervened and asked the hospital authorities to discharge the patient immediately, as the guidelines state that asymptomatic patients need to be discharged after 10 days from their date of admission. The hospitals must avoid any such issues as it puts additional financial burden over the patient,” Dr Gupta added.
The Ghaziabad district at present has total of 63 Covid-19-related deaths and the prime focus is now on reducing the death rate. The officials said that early tracing and testing of people having symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI) or severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and their immediate referral to appropriate Covid-designate hospitals is now being taken up.
The district reported four deaths till May 31 while 51 were added in the month of June alone. In the ongoing month, eight deaths have been added so far, till July 8.
