Amid coronavirus (COVID-19) scare, a separate out-patient-department (OPD) has been set up at super-specialty SKIMS hospital in Srinagar which will start functioning from Saturday.
As patients are experiencing symptoms of coronavirus and those with travel history to other countries visit general OPDs and emergencies in Kashmir’s hospitals, doctors believe, it can lead to a spreading of infection. Healthy individuals can get infected with the virus getting in close contact with infected persons in crowded hospitals, they say.
To reduce such chances, the SKIMS is starting a separate COVID-19 clinic. Medical superintendent SKIMS, Dr Farooq Jan said the clinic would be operational from Saturday. "The clinic will be operational from 10 am to 2 pm every day in the new University block of the hospital," he said.
The clinic, Dr Jan said, will be exclusively for people who fit into the definitions of "suspect case" as issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Pertinently, coronavirus lab testing facilities have already been started at the SKIMS and Government Medical College (GMC) Jammu and Srinagar. Adequate isolation rooms and quarantine facilities have been kept ready in all the Medical Colleges, District Hospitals and other institutions across the Jammu and Kashmir for quarantine and treatment of infected patients and suspected cases.
The government has strongly urged all social, religious and political organisations to avoid large gatherings. Till now nearly 1450 travellers and people in contact with suspected cases of coronavirus have been put under surveillance in Jammu and Kashmir while only one case has been tested positive in the Jammu region.
In the Ladakh region, one more person with travel history to Iran was tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, taking the total number of cases in the Union Territory to three. The man was part of a group that had gone to Iran on a pilgrimage. Last week, two persons tested positive for the contagious virus in Ladakh UT. So far no cases have been tested positive in the Kashmir region.