Ludhiana: Contrary to the tall claims of the state government about the functioning of Aam Aadmi clinics, there is no in-house testing facility in more than 50 such units, which were recently launched amid much fanfare in the district.
Due to absence of facility of routine blood tests and other general investigations within the premises, the clinics are left with no other option but to transport the samples to the nearby major state-run hospitals or community health centres to obtain test results of patients.
Apart from adding extra burden on the staff of such centres, this practice of transporting samples to other hospitals also leads to delay in issuance of tests reports to patients, which eventually delays their treatment at the Aam Aadmi clinics.
Sources said the problem has aggravated in the past two months. To conduct these tests, all such clinics had an agreement with a private laboratory, which was terminated around two months ago, sources added.
Compared to the routine procedure wherein tests reports are provided to patients in a day or two, absence of in-house testing facilities is leading to delay, in some cases, of several days in issuance of tests reports.
For instance, six Aam Aadmi clinics that are located in the areas around city’s civil hospitals send all the samples to the main laboratory of the civil hospital. The civil hospital gets the blood samples from the clinics located at Model Town, Abdullahpur Basti, Miller Ganj, Chand Cinema road, Kidwai Nagar and one near municipal corporation zone B office.
Requesting anonymity, a doctors deputed at one such clinic said, “If we consider the recent instance, reports of some of even those tests are pending whose samples were sent to the civil hospital almost a week back. Due to this, treatment of the patient suffers. Besides, we find it difficult to give answers to the patient when he comes to ask for his report.”
He said, “The civil hospital laboratory is already overburdened. Besides our tests, they also have to conduct tests of patients reporting in various OPDs, undertrials and medical certification for newly employed government staff.”
Ludhiana civil surgeon Dr Hatinder Kaur said, “We don’t have any special facility to conduct tests for the clinics. Following the termination of the contract with a testing lab a month back, the problem has surfaced as the government labs are already overloaded with testing. Now we are in contact with another lab for handling the collection of blood samples and give reports back to clinics on time. The process will take about a month or so, and thereafter, the problem will be resolved.”
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