Delhi: Rush results in long wait for Covid-19 tests, results delayed

New Delhi: Laboratories are overwhelmed with requests to collect Covid-19 samples, forcing most of them to either turn down the callers and ask them to speak to the customer-care executives. There also is a delay now in giving out the results.

One lab executives said his facility now had a waiting period of three days. Of the 70 test slots per day, the next available was on 18 April. Another private lab could offer slots only two days later. “We are overbooked. Even if the sample collector goes to a particular area, we cannot accommodate another request because as soon as we finish at one house, we have to immediately rush to another,” said the executive.

Dr Naveen Dang, consultant microbiologist at Dr Dang's Lab, claimed that all reports were “released within 24 hours”, but added that the lab’s workload was very heavy. “Other labs may have delaying the results, but that’s possible given the massive demand for tests,” said Dang. “A machine breakdown or shortfall in manpower can affect operations. Also, in many cases, the lab personnel are falling sick.” Many labs are advising desperate callers to seek help from other diagnostic facilities.

A housewife, Kamna Singh, who recently tested positive for the infection along with her husband and daughter, said that it took almost 48 hours for their test reports to be declared. “I have got tested four times in the past and each time I got tested, the report came before the passage of 24 hours,” said the flustered woman. “This time we kept waiting for the reports for two days. And after that, it was so tough to get a hospital bed for my husband. His condition is bad and is deteriorating by the day.”

A sample collector in a private lab said he was relieved when cases started declining early this year. But his worst nightmare came true soon after. “People we visited earlier have saved our phone numbers and I keep getting calls,” he said. “I can see they are in not in good shape, but I cannot help them. They want to immediately book tests and have samples collected. I feel terrible when I have to refuse them because I cannot generate a registration number on my own. Only the lab can to enable samples go to the designated laboratories.”

Tanushree Singh, a student, similarly complained, “I have been trying to book a home sample collection for myself and my family of six for two days, but I am unable to do so because all the labs I am trying to reach are either giving us slots a few days from now or not taking the calls altogether.”

For affected families, securing a time slot from a laboratory is not the end of their problems. They report that a time slot is no guarantee of a collecting agent turning up at their house. Apparently, because labs are mandated to give the test results in 24 hours, some of them, knowing they cannot keep to this time frame, delay picking up samples or decline to entertain requests altogether. Some executives also said that a few labs had started running out of test kits and were left with no option but to delay the pick-up of samples or not respond to calls.