Swab collection window comes up at Railway Hospital
VIJAYAWADA: The Railway Hospital has set up a swab collection window on its premises to prevent the spread of coronavirus among doctors treating the patients. The modification with glass panes fixed with two gloves was done at the ENT clinic of the hospital on Saturday. Hospital assistant chief medical superintendent (ACMS) Naseer Hussain said the main objective was to prevent the spread of droplet or aerosol infection on doctors from the suspected patients and ensure safer environment for them, while collecting the throat swab samples.
Explaining about the testing method, he said it was the safest, cost-effective way in the similar lines of phone booth testing method recently developed in Kerala to collect the swab samples without any physical contact with the suspected COVID-19 patients. The method involves collection of samples from inside the clinic. The suspected coronavirus-infected individual, whose samples are being taken, has to walk up to the booth and stand in the exterior front of the glass pane. The doctor inserts his or her hand through the pane’s fixed gloves, the patient is directed to open his mouth, and the swab is collected without any physical contact.
The swab collected from the patients is kept in a viral transport medium and preserved in the cold chain for dispatching it to testing centres of the State government. After collection of throat swab samples, the gloves and window are disinfected with sodium hypochlorite before proceeding to the next sample. The collection process is fully non-exposing to the doctor and gets over in two minutes. “A separate flow chart is designed and circulated among all the colleagues as per WHO guidelines to treat the patients with fever. Employees with health issues, fever and recent history of foreign visits are being regularly monitored.”