delhi

Updated: Mar 18, 2020 14:52 IST

The eighth person to test positive for Covid-19 in Delhi is a 44-year-old man from Saket, who left for Singapore after giving his swab sample at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, the national capital’s only collection centre. The test result came Tuesday.

“The person has already left the country; he lives in Singapore and in India. He had also travelled to Canada this month (March). His parents are still in their Saket home and their samples have been collected. We are also monitoring eight other people he came in contact with, including his househelp and driver,” said an official from Delhi government’s health department.

Delhi’s 8th case of Covid-19 had visited the sample collection centre at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital to get tested, as is the norm. “He travelled to two countries where there are cases of Covid-19 and he had some symptoms so he was guided to the sample collection centre by the helpline numbers,” said another health department official.

Of the seven others from the city who tested positive for the viral disease, two have recovered and been discharged. One person, the mother of a 46-year-old man who had returned from Italy, succumbed to the disease on March 13. Another person, who is counted among Delhi fatalities, was a Rajasthan resident who had been quarantined at the army’s Manesar facility after being evacuated from Italy.

So far, 137 people in the country have contracted Covid-19 and three have died.

With health department keeping a strict watch on symptomatic persons suspected to have Covid-19, the two nodal hospitals—Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Safdarjung—have already kept over 250 people in isolation since the measures to contain the virus began mid-January.

OPD TIME CHANGES

However, after receiving nine suspected cases, Lok Nayak hospital, near Delhi Gate, decided to limit the number of patients who visit its outpatient clinics. Additionally, the privately run Maharaja Agrasen Hospital will shut its OPD services from March 20-31.

Lok Nayak Hospital cut the registration time for out-patient clinics to 1.5 hours from the current 4 hours to reduce the number of patients visiting the clinics each day. Registrations for OPD at the hospital will only be done between 08.30am and 10.00am, authorities said.

The Lok Nayak Hospital is the biggest tertiary-care hospital run by the Delhi government and is visited by around 7,000 patients in its out-patient clinics each day. Also, for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, the hospital has asked doctors to prescribe medication and pharmacies to dispense drugs for an entire month to reduce their exposure.

“As there are suspected Covid-19 cases in the hospitals, these measures were taken to reduce the number of patients coming in and limit crowding. We usually give patients with chronic diseases their medicine supply for only 15 days so they come for regular check-ups. But now, medicines will be dispensed for an entire month to reduce the number of visits for these patients,” said Dr Kishore Singh, medical director of the hospital.

“Hospitals must look at ways to reduce the number of patients coming in by cutting elective procedures and asking people, not in emergent need of care, to delay their visits. We are talking about social distancing, but hospitals in Delhi are still full of patients,” said Dr MC Mishra, former director of AIIMS.