Non-symptomatic patients to be discharged after 10 days sans testing

Jammu: The Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam today chaired a meeting to take stock of efforts toward mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic and review the related Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and policies.
Administrative Secretaries of departments of Health & Medical Education, Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, and Revenue, besides Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Commissioner, JMC, Mission Director, NHM along with concerned Heads of Departments participated in the meeting.
In view of the recent surge in COVID cases in Jammu province, the Principal, GMC, Jammu, was asked to ensure adequate supply of oxygen and other supplies in the hospital, including PPE kits, besides recruitment of adequate manpower to overcome the problems in the hospital during this pandemic.
Chief Secretary directed installation of 150 CCTVs at the Government Medical College for better patient management and monitoring, besides establishing a special COVID counter in Emergency Block of GMC to act as one point contact of COVID testing and subsequent segregation of symptomatic, asymptomatic, and negative cases.“The said counter will also house a COVID help desk to assist the patients through various procedures of the notified SOPs”, he added.
Chief Secretary directed the Commissioner, JMC to conduct complete 03 day sanitization/cleanliness drive at GMC, Jammu immediately. The Principal, GMC, was asked to clear all the parking lots of idle vehicles within GMC premises for convenience and free movement of COVID and other patients.
Further, the Chief Secretary directed to nominate nodal officers in all COVID hospitals to monitor daily COVID case management, patient admission/discharge, referrals, and infection trajectory. The Health & Medical Education Department was asked to conduct serological surveys and antibody tests to ascertain the spread of infection and associated immunity in the general population.
While reviewing the discharge policy, the Chief Secretary informed that the policy has been successful in lessening the burden on the tertiary health care system. In this regard, the concerned officers were directed to discharge the non-symptomatic patients in the hospitals after 10 days without conducting any subsequent test.
The concerned officers were directed to strictly implement home isolation guidelines for asymptomatic patients and ensure that they are free of co-morbidity and provided with Government-sponsored oxymeters, before being sent to home quarantine, besides using the Arogya Setu app to monitor their status.
Chief Secretary reiterated the importance of aggressive testing for early medical intervention and asked the concerned to focus on vulnerable patients including children, old aged, pregnant ladies, patients with Influenza like Illness (ILI), Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI), co-morbid conditions, service providers, drivers, and healthcare professionals.