08 Jul 2020  |   05:38am IST

Fearing COVID, regular patients self discharge themselves from Ponda sub district hospital

Team Herald

Ponda: In a development that shows the extent to which, people seem to believe speculation regarding COVID-19, several regular patients, who were getting treatment for various other ailments at the Ponda sub-district hospital self discharged themselves, after there was unverified information circulating that a doctor from the hospital had allegedly tested positive. 

Hospital sources, said 50 such patients had left the hospital voluntary in the last few days.

It may be recalled that the many positive cases at the Ponda police station had led to it being shut temporarily for the public. This by itself had already created a sense of panic in the taluka as the number of cases in Ponda had increased. 

So when news about this alleged case surfaced; it led to further confusion and speculation about whether the doctor got it from a patient or if a patient had passed on the infection to the doctor. 

Given that the patients seem terrified and got themselves self discharged in a hurry, an official at the hospital, responding to a query about what had happened, said that they had not asked any of them to leave or get self discharged.  Further, it was revealed that while a week ago, there were around 70 hospital beds being used by patients, on Tuesday that number had reduced to around 15. One doctor commented that the patients had left voluntary.  The doctor added, “We are there to serve the people coming for treatment and the patients should not worry.  There are around more than one dozen doctors working at the sub district hospital so there is no need for people to worry.

The doctor reiterated that during testing, most of the sub-district hospital’s tests had come negative.  All these doctors had attended the meeting held earlier at the hospital along with the Health Minister, Cooperation Minister and Ponda MLA. 

Meanwhile, the locals of Wadi Talavalim locals heaved a sigh of relief as 60 swabs of locals tested positive on Tuesday. They had been tested after three cases were detected in the area.