M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, March 4: Garhwa Sadar hospital got a shot in the arm when the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) approved the functioning and proficiency of the RT-PCR lab.
Garhwa civil surgeon Dr Anil Kumar said this is their teamwork that saw their RT-PCR lab approved by the ICMR.
He said this is the first such lab in Garhwa where there is no medical college as the nearest medical college, Medinirai medical college, is around 40 km away from Garhwa.
The ICMR Delhi has provided the Sadar hospital Garhwa with login credentials for submitting data to the ICMR CV portal.
Notably, AIIMS Raipur, Chhatisgarh is the mentor of the medical colleges across Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand and it is the authorising body to issue the letter of approval for the RTPCR lab.
The director and chief executive officer of AIIMS Raipur Dr Nitin M Nagarkar has issued a letter of approval for the RTPCR lab in the Sadar hospital Garhwa.
The letter of approval reads the RTPCR lab in Sadar hospital Garhwa is to test SARS Covid 2.
Garhwa district epidemiologist Dr Santosh Kumar Mishra said, “It was a big challenge to all of us. There were occasions when we failed in the validation runs. We didn’t lose patience. We kept improving.”
“The VRDL Rims Ranchi had sent us 5 samples of the validation run. We got through it. It paved the way for us to approach the AIIMS Raipur which for a couple of hiccups found us fit for approval for testing SARS Covid 2,” he added.
Dr Mishra said, “On Friday, we tested 12 samples for SARS Covid 2. All tested negative.”
On being asked as to whether the RTPCR lab in the Garhwa Sadar hospital has consumables, machines, regular power supply, trained technicians etc to which Dr Mishra said, “We have urged the civil surgeon Garhwa Dr Anil Kumar to ensure smooth availability for the consumables as one can’t always borrow it from the medical college in Daltonganj.”
Dr Mishra said they remain too concerned about the sequencing of testing does not break down as it means a full reverse journey in which precious consumables are wasted besides time and energy of the human resources go in vain as testing is done afresh.
