Covid-19 testing halted at RMCH lab

Covid-19 testing has been stopped in the RT-PCR lab of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH).

It has been halted since last Friday due to the resignation of two scientific officers working in the RT-PCR lab of the hospital.

Director of the hospital Brigadier General Shamim Yazdani said, "There is no RT-PCR lab in any government hospital in Bangladesh, we were the first to introduce it".

Since the hospital does not have a scientific officer, the lab has been run for so long by the scientific officers of the divisional forensic DNA lab.

In addition to their lab work, they also conducted Covid-19 tests.

As their workload increased, they resigned. "Previously they tried to resign also but we requested them not to", added the director.

The director said that now Covid-19 testing is temporarily stopped. When skilled people are found the lab will reopen.

A letter has been sent to the director of Health and the director-general of the Directorate General of Health Services in this regard.

He said, now there is no outbreak of Covid-19 in Rajshahi. Very few samples were being tested in the lab – about 40 to 50 on average every day.

Those samples are now being sent to the lab of Rajshahi Medical College. As a result, even if the lab is closed, it is not having any harmful effects. However, if the Covid-19 infection increases, then there will be no choice but to start the lab again.

The two resigned officers are SM Hasan A Latif and Hamid Ahmed. They were brought from the DNA lab in March 2020 to launch the PCR lab at RMCH.

Recently, there was a complaint about missing sample test kits from the hospital. The committee formed to investigate the matter recommended a higher inquiry into the disappearance of testing kits.

According to relevant sources, the technologists of the lab recently accused the two scientific officers of using half of the reaction solution and stealing the other half during the Covid-19 test. Disparities were also observed in the documentation.

On 9 November, the hospital authorities formed a committee to investigate the allegations. The committee was headed by Shah Alam, head of the Microbiology Department, Rajshahi Medical College. The committee did not find any direct evidence of the disappearance of kits. However, the complainants claim that at least 2,000 kits have disappeared.

Based only on the testimony of the complainants, it was recommended to relocate the two officers elsewhere.

The investigation report was submitted to the hospital director on 21 November.

Despite the committee's recommendation, the hospital authorities did not remove the two scientific officers.

However, on 11 November, the two scientific officers tendered resignation letters to the hospital's Director Brigadier General Shamim Yazdani. The hospital director then requested them to work in the lab till 16 December. They have not worked in the lab since 17 December.

Rajshahi Medical College Lab in-charge Dr Sabera Gul Nahar said, "We tested the samples in three to four shifts per day during Covid-19 infection spikes. An average of 360 to 400 samples were tested daily. As there is no heavy outbreak of Covid-19 now, about 250 samples were tested from the samples sent by the hospital. The number of infected were three to five."