MF AHMAD
Daltonganj, Dec 29: Erratic electricity supply hampers the swab sample test for Covid in the testing lab in Medinirai medical college at Pokhraha.
The two most vital and sensitive machines auto extractor and master mixing get shut if it doesn’t get an adequate electricity supply, as a result, the samples for testing are discarded and test work starts afresh from the beginning which is time taking and involves a waste of consumables as well.
The in-charge of the Covid lab Dr Seema Kumari of the pathology department in the medical college said, “Erratic power supply disrupts the sequence of testing very badly where we are to discard the samples. The cycle of testing gets awry. Our costly consumables also go wasted. We are to start afresh the cycle of testing. It is highly painful and time taking.”
She said these days we are getting around 200 to 250 samples of the Covid test which we believe will shoot up in the event of a surge of Covid or because of fear and concern about it.
Executive engineer electricity Daltonganj division SC Mishra when contacted to know about this said, “We have not received any complaint about this so far from the medical college nevertheless it has now been brought to my notice we will ensure uninterrupted electricity supply to this Covid lab from now onwards.”
The medical college has one huge generator set but it is for the entire medical college building and as such it is not switched on especially for the Covid lab simply because it ‘eats up around 50 litres of diesel per hour’.
