In what can be considered a highly negligent act, a foreign returnee who had his samples taken in Thiruvananthapuram Medical College on May 30 was asked to go home before the results of his samples were published.
But by the time he returned home and possibly mingled closely with his family, his tests results turned up positive. The man then had to be urgently brought back to the Medical College in an ambulance.
Health Minister K K Shailaja has asked the Medical College Superintendent to submit a report on the alleged lapse on Monday, June 1. According to protocol, all returnees from abroad will have to undergo compulsory institutional quarantine for at least seven days.
It is not clear why the duty doctor had allowed the patient to leave. The 42-year-old man, a native of Karavaram panchayat in Attingal taluk in Thiruvananthpauram district, had arrived from Kuwait on May 30. Being symptomatic, he was taken straight to the Medical College so that his sample could be taken. He stayed in the isolation ward that day but the very next day, before tests results were declared, he was told he could go home.
The man is said to have told the doctors that he had recovered from COVID-19 while in Kuwait. It is also said the duty doctor had received oral information that the man's sample had tested negative. Both these factors – his claim of recovery in Kuwait and the message that his latest sample too had tested negative – could have prompted the duty doctor to discharge the patient.
Even if the message the doctor got was correct, quarantine protocol did not authorise him to discharge the foreign returnee. The man should have been in the hospital till the results came and, even if it was negative, had to be shifted to institutional quarantine and not to his home.
As it happened, the man was taken in an ambulance to his house in Karavaram. As he was taken in an ambulance, he had not come into contact with anyone outside but this cannot be said about his close family members.
By 11:30am on Sunday there was official confirmation that the man's serum was infected. An ambulance was immediately despatched to bring him back to the hospital.
A similar incident had happened in the Medical College in the first week of March, before the lockdown began. A person who returned from Italy was taken directly to the Medical College for testing but once the sample was taken, he was asked to go home even after the person insisted that he be put in an isolation ward.
The man then reluctantly took an autorickshaw to his house in Vellanad, in the outskirts of the city. On the way, he entered a medical shop and a juice stall and is said to have had come into contact with at least 50 people. The moment he reached home, his result came as positive. Then, too, an ambulance had to be sent to bring the patient back.
Fortunately, the man did not transmit the disease to anyone.