Medical Education Minister Dr Sudhakar and MP Tejasvi Surya inaugurate facility
Bengaluru:
A newly set-up Covid -19 testing facility at Kidwai Hospital will scan all patients registered at Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology as well as one attender per patient. Medical Education Minister Dr.K.Sudhakar, along with Bengaluru South MP Tejaswi Surya, inaugurated the Covid-19 testing unit and swab collecting booth at the hospital on Sunday.
On the occasion, the Red Cross distributed face masks to Asha workers while Rotary Club donated PPE kits.
Post the Covid-19 tests, all patients who test negative will be put on to surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy and palliative care as required.
The opening of the testing centre follows the Medical Education Minister’s decision to test all patients at KMIO and their attendants for Covid-19.
On April 25, in a letter to the Medical Education Minister, Director of KMIO Dr Ramachandra said cancer treatment cannot wait for too long; hence the institute had decided to open a testing centre in the premises.
The lab is equipped with a Beckman Coulter Biomek 4000 (liquid handling system) for automated RNA extraction, and a Quant Studio 5 RT PCR system for Covid-19 testing. It takes approximately 3.5 hours to test 380 samples, and the process can be repeated two to three times per day.
