Ghaziabad: People wait in queues, complain of ‘missing’ samples and reports

Ghaziabad: Many people who arrived for Covid-19 test reports at the government testing centre at MMG Hospital on Monday complained of “missing samples and test reports”

Ghaziabad: Many people who arrived for Covid-19 test reports at the government testing centre at MMG Hospital on Monday complained of “missing samples and test reports”. According to them, they were “asked to give their swab samples again”. People, who joined a long queue at the centre as early as 7am on Monday, waited till 1 pm for the submission of the samples, they said.

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At present, the district government is conducting Covid-19 tests at about 30 locations in Ghaziabad. Of the 30 centres, 13 are static booths where residents can walk-in and get themselves tested for free. The Covid-19 centre at MMG Hospital is one of the static testing centres. HT visited the site on Monday and noticed both men and women standing in long queues, and they hardly maintained social distancing.

Nisheeth Nigam, a resident of Vasundhara, who has been suffering from a recurrent fever for the past few days, came to the testing centre on Monday morning. “I came here on Sunday as well, and my rapid antigen report was negative. They had asked me to come on Monday for the RT-PCR test. Today, when it was my turn, they said that the process for RT-PCR testing was done, and they conducted another rapid antigen test. I tested positive... I waited for someone to call me and suggest some medicines, or take stock of my health conditions, but nobody called. It did not get any medicine till now,” he said.

As per the recent directions, Covid-positive patients are to be provided with medicine pouches at testing centres.

Manish Kumar, a resident of Govindpuram, arrived for collecting his test report on Monday, but was told that samples he gave earlier were missing. “I had given my samples at the testing booth in Sanjay Nagar hospital on April 13. On Monday, I came to collect my report, but I was told that the samples might have been misplaced. They asked me to stand in a queue again and submit my swab samples again. I waited for more than two hours, but the queue did not move fast,” he added.

Like others, Philip Abraham from Bagu Colony in Vijay Nagar also stood in the queue since early Monday morning, and it was not his turn till 1 pm. “The staff testing the people came here at 10.30 am, while we have been waiting in the line from as early as 7 am. I had given my samples on April 16, and they asked me to come on April 19. When I came here, they told me that my report got misplaced somehow,” Abraham said.

When the issue faced by the people at the testing centre in MMG Hospital were taken up with Dr RK Gupta, district surveillance officer, he said that he will get it checked, and conduct an inquiry about the “misplaced reports and samples”. “There may be some shortcomings at the centre, and we will get these inquired, and sort it out. At present, a lot of people are coming to get tested, and this is a big issue for the staff and the infrastructure... However, we are conducting tests as per the given target, and our daily average is about 5,500 to 6,000 samples,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer (CMO).

As per the directions last week, the Uttar Pradesh government directed the health authorities in Ghaziabad to conduct 3,500 rapid antigen tests, and another 1,700 RT-PCR tests on a daily basis.

Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate, did not comment on this.