HYDERABAD: As Covid-19 cases are increasing by the day in Telangana, the ‘Covid-19 monitoring system’ onto which test reports are uploaded by labs, both private and government, seems to be having technical issues. On Sunday, several private labs in the GHMC limits were unable to access the portal and had to turn away large number of patients. Express has learnt that the portal was down from 9 am to almost 2 pm on Sunday. “I had gone to a lab in KPHB Phase 6 for Covid-19 test. However, I was turned away and asked to come in the evening,” said a 26-year-old patient. A similar experience was shared by a resident from Pattancheru, who went to two labs in RC Puram, but was told to come later as the server was down.
As per protocol, every patient who takes a RAT or RTPCR test in Telangana has to be registered on the ‘Covid-19 Monitoring System’ with a phone number before the sample is taken and tested. Upon registration, an OTP and S-ID (Sample ID) number is generated and sent to the patient’s phone number, which has to be updated by the lab in their system. This foolproof method was evolved to ensure every sample is accounted for by the government.
Earlier also, the issue was encountered but it was limited to delay in generation of OTP. Now, even reports are not being delivered up to five days if the sample is taken on the government set up. “I gave a sample on March 12 at Area Hospital Pattancheru. It’s March 15 and I am yet to receive the result. The hospital said they had a long backlog,” shared a patient.
Another patient shared how she had to go to the Ayurveda Hospital testing centre twice, once for testing and then to collect the report . Meanwhile, officials said that this issue was a one-off and occurred only in certain pockets. “The issue did not persist in all labs. This is one of the rare times when the system had issues,” said a senior district health official.