Bengaluru fever clinics face issues registering fresh Covid-19 cases

Armed with the new antigen testing kits, 145 fever clinics on Monday tested 1,200 people for Covid-19 in three hours.

Though hundreds tested positive, clinic staff could not communicate the results to the health officials, leaving several Covid-19 patients stuck.

Of the 204 who tested positive in the city on Monday, the system could register only 38. So, 166 patients could not be given the district patient code (BU number) to facilitate hospitalisation. Several fever clinics said they could not register the patients either with the BBMP officers or on the ICMR Covid-19 portal, hampering the hospitalisation process.

At a Bengaluru South fever clinic, a senior doctor who does not wish to be named said nine people were found Covid positive after the clinic conducted 46 antigen tests.

“We spent all day trying to get them transferred to hospitals, but none of the concerned health officers would answer the phone,” the doctor said. “We also do not have the ID to log into the ICMR portal.” In the end, the clinic had no choice but to send the patients back home, she said.

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Fever clinics in other parts of the city had similar stories. Data from the BBMP reveals only 15 of 145 clinics could register fresh Covid-19 cases.

Health Commissioner Pankaj Pandey said the login issue has been fixed. “We have started providing them the login IDs,” he said.

BBMP Commissioner B H Anil Kumar said newly diagnosed patients could call a 108 Ambulance on their own to reach a hospital once they have a positive report.

But several fever clinics were reluctant to reveal to the patients of their positive report since they would panic and demand they be sent to a hospital when they had no means to do that. “It was horrible and demoralising,” admitted a doctor. “The government should sort this out.”

The BBMP commissioner said the clinics are obligated to reveal the antigen test reports to the patients. “The concerned ward-wise medical officers of health are also supposed to update new cases on the ICMR Covid-19 portal,” he said.

The exception

Two fever clinics at Srirampura and PG Halli collectively reported 21 positive cases on Monday. Dr K Sathyavathi, in-charge of both the centres, said she and her staff sent about 14 patients to hospitals based on Specimen Referral Form (SRF) numbers alone.

“The rest were placed in home quarantine, but we informed them about their test results and gave them instructions on how to conduct self-quarantine,” she said.