SKIMS lab refuses to take swine flu samples from Valley hospitals

SRINAGAR: At a time when hundreds of suspected cases of swine flu are being screened at Valley hospitals, the sole testing laboratory at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar has refused to take samples for testing from Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, and its associated hospitals.

Bismah Malik

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, February 27

At a time when hundreds of suspected cases of swine flu are being screened at Valley hospitals, the sole testing laboratory at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar has refused to take samples for testing from Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, and its associated hospitals.

Official sources at the GMC confirmed that hundreds of samples from Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS) and Chest Disease Hospital in Srinagar were sent to the SKIMS lab.

“The SKIMS authorities have refused to take further samples from us for testing. We are awaiting confirmation of many reports which have already been sent to the SKIMS lab,” an official source at the SMHS told The Tribune.

Sources said Principal of the GMC Dr Rafiq Pampori had been communicated that no further samples should be sent to the SKIMS lab for some days.

The sources said the patient care and the swine flu treatment at various Valley hospitals was getting affected because of the delay in confirmation of reports.

Chest Disease Hospital where an ICU and an isolation ward have been created for treating the swine flu patients has not admitted any H1N1 patient till now.

Dr Naveed, Nodal Officer for H1N1, Chest Disease Hospital, said they were awaiting the confirmation reports of already sent samples and had been instructed not to sent any further samples to the SKIMS lab.

He said hundreds of H1N1 suspects visited the hospital daily and the patient care would be effective when the hospital gets its own testing laboratory.

“We are expecting to set up our own laboratory on Monday after which things will get better,” Naveed said.

He said a two-member expert team would be deputed from Delhi to train the technicians in the laboratory on how to perform the tests.

SKIMS spokesperson Kulsoom Bhat said the test reports at the SKIMS lab were being awaited for the last 24 hours. The spokesperson said only 10 samples from the hospital were taken for testing today.

Meanwhile, Medical Superintendent of the SKIMS Dr Farooq Jan said the laboratory was being shifted to a new place at the hospital due to which the testing of new samples wasn’t possible.

“It is not just the other hospitals. Even we haven’t been able to perform tests in our laboratory because of shifting of the lab. The samples are being preserved and the tests will be performed soon. The reagents and chemicals have been received which were sent by the National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi,” Farooq Jan said.