Noida: District hospital runs out of testing kits

Noida: The district hospital at Sector 30 on Tuesday ran out of Covid-19 testing kits and the sample collection was stopped at 10 am while usually it goes on till around 1pm

Noida: The district hospital at Sector 30 on Tuesday ran out of Covid-19 testing kits and the sample collection was stopped at 10 am while usually it goes on till around 1pm. Several people at the hospital said that they had been coming to the government facility for the past three days only to get an RT-PCR or a rapid antigen test done.

HT Image

A visit by an HT team to the district hospital found that sees a huge footfall of the Covid-19 symptomatic patients found the ground situation quite grim.

The patients, many symptomatic and with children, said that they were also asked to get a photocopy of a local address proof if their Aadhaar cards did not carry a local address.

“This is the third time that we have come to the hospital just to get the testing done. Day before yesterday, they told us to come on Monday, yesterday they told us that we will have to bring a local address proof since Aadhaar card had an address of Nainital. Today, we brought a photocopy of cooking gas connection but the guard asked us to come tomorrow. We are helpless,” said Diksha Negi, a 35-year old woman, accompanied by her two children, who visited the hospital for third day from her home in Sector 26.

“I had the soft copy of my house rent agreement in my cellphone. But by the time we came back with its photocopy, the testing was stopped. A health worker here said that they have run out of kits. It feels like they are simply trying to suppress the sampling. I would go to a private hospital now,” said Kartik Sharma, a Noida-based engineer.

Meanwhile, a health officer, on the condition of anonymity, said that they are unable to take samples for Covid tests as the hospital has run out of testing kits. “The truth is that we have run out of the testing kits. We have to face the patients and sometimes angry crowds,” said a health officer at the Covid testing centre of the hospital.

Dr Renu Agarwal, chief medical superintendent of the hospital, could not be reached despite several calls and text messages.

Meanwhile, GB Nagar chief medical officer Dr Deepak Ohri denied that there is any dearth of testing kits. “There are enough kits and there is no shortage at all. We are also not asking for any local address proof from any patients approaching a government facility to get their Covid tests done,” said Ohri.