COVID-19: JIPMER at forefront of Covid testing, says director

PUDUCHERRY: Jawaharlal Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) director Rakesh Aggarwal on Saturday said the centrally-administered medical institute has been at the forefront of COVID-19 testing and supported setting up testing facilities across the southern region. Slamming reports in some sections of the media that only 50 COVID tests were done every day at the JIPMER, Aggarwal dubbed the news as “false, mischievous, and malicious”.

In a press release, he said JIPMER has been performing a big chunk of testing of COVID-19 samples in the union territory and has also helped in setting up many testing facilities across the southern regions to conduct real-time PCR, TrueNat, and rapid antigen tests. The director said JIPMER had performed around 750 RT-PCR tests on average every day this month. This was in addition to a large number of rapid antigen tests performed as point-of-care tests in various wards and procedure rooms in the hospital. JIPMER has so far performed more than 2,78,000 RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic and this has involved heavy expenditure, he said.

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Certain modifications in the consultation procedure for the outpatients in the form of teleconsultations followed by in-person visits by appointment were done to ensure adherence to guidelines prescribed by the Centre, the Director said. “We have introduced the modification to ensure that patients did not face any risk of exposure to COVID-19 in overcrowded OPDs,” the Director said, adding that this was only a temporary arrangement till the COVID situation got better. The Director said the institute had utilised all the funds sanctioned during the last two years by the Centre. During 2020-2021, JIPMER had a revised budget of Rs 910 crore under different heads and this allocation was fully utilised.

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During the current financial year (2021-2022) against a budgetary estimate of Rs 950 crore, the institute has received a grant of Rs 760.06 crore as on December 31, 2021. The institute had already spent Rs 747.33 crore out of this allocation, he said. “There is, therefore, no truth in reports in a section of the media that a big chunk of grants was surrendered to the Centre without utilisation,” he said.