Isolate Corona positive cases from non-COVID centres: Health Ministry
New Delhi: Taking note of incidents of hospitals having closed down after healthcare workers contracting coronavirus, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has on Monday asked all non-COVID hospitals to immediately isolate COVID-19 positive cases to another room and if the health condition permits, the patient must be transferred a COVID-19 dedicated hospital as soon as possible.
The Health Ministry, through a standard operating procedure (SoP), has asked non-COVID healthcare centres to not shut down their operations if any patient tested positive at their centres rather asked them to follow the guidelines issued by the ministry to deal with such eventualities.
In the advisory the ministry said, "There have been incidents from various places across the country where non-COVID health facilities have reported confirmation of COVID-19 in patients admitted for an unrelated illness, causing undue apprehension among healthcare workers, sometimes leading to impaired the functionality of such hospitals."
"Whenever a non-COVID patient or any healthcare worker is suspected to have COVID like symptoms or tests positive for the virus, the non-COVID hospitals must investigate the matter and suggest further course of action in accordance with the provisions of hospital infection control committee (HICC)," the SoP stated.
According to the SoP, non-COVID hospitals should inform the local health authorities about the positive case and assess the clinical status of the patient prior to referral to a designated COVID facility.
"If the clinical status of the case permits, transfer such case to a COVID-19 isolation facility after informing the facility in advance about the transfer. Also, complete case records of such patients must be made available to the receiving hospital," it said, adding that the hospital and ambulance must be disinfected.
"All contacts of the positive patient in non-COVID hospital, which includes healthcare workers, relatives, visitors etc, must be quarantined for 14 days and their details must also be shared with local health authorities," it said.
As per the SoP, all close contacts, including healthcare workers and supportive staff, of the confirmed case should be put on Hydroxychloroquine chemoprophylaxis for a period of 7 weeks, keeping in mind the contraindications of HCQ.
The SoP advises temporary closure of the hospital if it continues to report new hospital-acquired COVID-19 cases in the following days and it could be opened only after thorough cleaning and disinfection.
The SoP also stated that all staff of the hospitals must go through active screening on daily basis and monitor their own health at all the time for the appearance of COVID-19 symptoms and report them at the earliest.
The Health Ministry has come out with the SoP to prevent occurrence of hospital acquired infection (HAI) in health facilities as the practice of universal precautions still not being taken in many hospitals.
