'Lab technicians not qualified for taking COVID-19 samples'
Referring to the Centre's letter dated April 8 which hasalso given guidelines in respect of qualified personnel tocollect samples, the association submitted that making itsmembers takethe samples would amount to violation of medicalrules, the petitioner-association moved the court. When the petition came up for hearing before it, theDivision Bench comprising Justice M. Sathyanarayanan andJustice M. Nirmal Kumar adjourned the plea to May 13. According to the association, the country is in the midstof an unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 and one of the keycomponents of the association's strategy to combat thisoutbreak is contact tracing and collecting of throat swab(oropharyngeal) and nasal swab (nasopharyngeal) samples ofpotentially infected persons. "They said samples can be collected only through thetrained healthcare worker in presence of a clinician. Onlyqualified and trained persons particularly ENT specialistdoctors and postgraduate training doctors who have studiedthe anatomy and physiology of throat and nasal swab can dothe job," the petitioner said.
Even the Union government through a communication datedApril 8 has issued guidelines and has directed all the statesand union territories to take necessary steps to utilise theservices of ENT professionals and post-graduate trainees totake such samples. The WHO has also issued a similarguideline, the association added.
This apart, the lab technicians have only basicqualification of diploma in medical laboratory technologywithout any expertise in the anatomy and physiology of ahuman body making them ineligible to collect such samples,they said. Therefore, the petitioner-association wanted the court todirect the state to immediately stop engaging lab techniciansfor collecting swab samples and instead engage qualified ENTdoctors for the purpose. CORNVG NVG