It is an agonising wait for nine patients, two of them serious, who were admitted to Bokaro General Hospital (BGH) with symptoms of influenza and flu a week ago, as their Covid reports are yet to arrive.

Doctors who are treating them are doing so taking full precautions, but they, too, are concerned that such delays are adding to the trauma of patients and care givers alike.

Bokaro district civil surgeon Dr A. K. Pathak, who has been facing criticism for the delays from ministers, MPs and MLAs, says he is helpless. “What can I do? We get about 50- 60 reports everyday using Truenat. But the pendency of reports is increasing by the day at Patliputra Medical College and Hospital (PMCH)-Dhanbad,” he said. A positive test report using Truenat machine requires a confirmatory RT-PCR test which can only be conducted at the Dhanbad hospital.

There are more over 1,500 test reports pending since July 9, said BGH sources.

BGH, the dedicated Covid hospital of the district, now has 47 active cases. They are all in the Covid ward. Nine others, who are awaiting their reports, are in a separate ward for suspected Covid patients. This ward is for those with symptoms resembling influenza or who have come in contact with a Covid patient or have a travel history.

The ward for suspected Covid patients had two divisions, one for critical patients and another for non-critical patients.

The ward for suspected patients has seen five deaths in the past seven days. Of these, Covid-positive test reports of two men who died on July 12 reached the hospital five days after their death on July 18. Reports of three others are still pending.

The two men, one aged 64 and the other 69, died on July 12 within 24 hours of being admitted. Civil surgeon Pathak said they started contact tracing and found one family member of one of them. That person has tested positive and had been shifted to the Covid ward.

Pathak said delayed reports were making it extremely difficult for them to manage. “We are collecting swab samples of about 300 people daily. But we are no receiving that many test reports. The reports are coming very late from the RT-PCR laboratory at PMCH, Dhanbad,” he rued.