Four weeks is a long time in a pandemic, but that’s how long Metropolis Healthcare has been barred by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation from lifting samples and testing for Covid.
Earlier this week, Metropolis received a show-cause notice from the BMC for delays in delivering lab results, that reportedly affected the course of treatment. The State’s largest lab network was then stopped from doing these tests for a month.
Metropolis is the third lab network in the State that has received a notice from the authorities during Covid times, the other two being Thyrocare and SRL Diagnostics. These developments come even as the State and its capital top the list of Covid cases and mortality in the country.
‘Fight together’
Industry-representatives told
“We would like to work in partnership with the authorities rather than in a confrontational environment,” said an industry representative.
Ameera Shah, Metropolis’ Managing Director said, they had responded to the notice and the delays were due to reasons including some of their staff testing Covid positive, vendor delays and manpower shortage as employees did not show up at work.
“We have deployed additional resources and our labs are operational 24x7,” she said, adding that they had cleared all backlog and were working to address the BMC’s concerns. “As the largest lab chain in Maharashtra with the highest capacity for Covid tests, our only aim is to serve the citizens of Mumbai and the State. With increasing infection rate in Maharashtra, we urge the government to partner with us together in the fight,” she said. Metropolis does about 1,500-2,000 tests per day, she said.
Complex challenges
In Thyrocare’s case, it was not delayed reports but confusion over positive and negative test results that posed “challenges” with the Thane and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporations, said the laboratory chain’s founder A Velumani.
Pointing to problems in Delhi as well, he said: “Our struggle is in explaining why a person who had tested positive had turned negative on a later day. And everyday, every other person is interpreting details in their own way,” he said, alleging that only private labs were receiving show-cause notices and not government-owned ones. “But we still do about 1,500 tests a day,” he said. Thyrocare services samples for the BMC.
Arindam Haldar, Chief Executive of SRL Diagnostics, said that private labs were fighting a whole new set of practical challenges in their Covid-19 journey, including “complex regulations, pricing pressures, lengthy data entry requirements” etc. And this was putting “incredible pressure on already overworked medical professionals.”
“This situation is new to all and most are trying their best,” he said, adding that private labs authorised to do Covid testing took pride to work with the government as an equal partner. “Government authorities should acknowledge that the healthcare challenges faced by our country today are significant, and should do what it can to strengthen our exceptional union,” he added.