Srinagar: As the more virulent COVID-19 wave wreaks havoc across India, Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar has put on hold all routine Out Patient Department (OPD) services and elective surgeries preparing itself for a likely patient surge.
On Thursday, a meeting chaired by Principal GMC Dr Samia Rashid and attended by 10 heads of the departments decided that “all routine OPDs/elective surgeries shall be stopped till further orders and only surgeries of emergency nature/malignancy and other referral cases shall be entertained”.
The meeting also decided to transform certain wards at SMHS hospital as COVID designated wards.
“The Medical Superintended SMHS hospital shall take all measures to avoid intermingling of COVID and Non-Covid patients/attendants apart from taking measures to safegaurd resources/manpower,” read the minutes of the meeting.
It added: “…patient load viz-a-viz duty roster of doctors and paramedical staff should be regulated and rationalized.”
MS, SMHS, Dr Nazir Chowdhary, and Head Chest Medicine Dr Naveed Nazir among other HODs attended the meeting.
To mention, Covid-19 cases in Jammu and Kashmir continue to show a spurt as 1,144 fresh positive cases were reported on Friday pushing the number of active cases near 10,620 which otherwise were less than 600 around a month before.
Two more deaths were reported in J&K in the last 24 hours taking the death toll to 2,048 and active cases continue to increase and the recovery rate decreases with each passing day. 1,144 fresh positive cases reported on Friday pushed the tally of positive cases to 144,021.