Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, Dec 19: It was like receiving information of a man long dead, 38 years to be precise, to be alive. Such an incident is incredible but true…well, almost. This is exactly what happened to a man in Bhadudih panchayat of Saraikela-Kharsawan district. the son of the man who died 38 years ago received a message on his mobile, “Your father’s sample has been taken for COVID tests.” The son was naturally overawed. “How can this be when my father passed away 38 years ago?” he must have wondered. He shared the message with his relatives and they too were left in a quandary.
The very next day, the man’s sister too received a mobile phone message, “Your sample has been taken for COVID tests.” The entire family is upset and has been left speculating.
The Health Department has developed a system by which a person whose sample has been obtained for COVID tests is sent a message of sample being collected, name, address, symptoms and mobile number. Based on the details the test report is sent.
But such mistakes may occur. A doctor on condition of anonymity said that such mistakes could happen especially in cases of people whose samples have been taken but who want to suppress their identity. The doctor said that such people willfully give wrong information about their names, addresses and mobile numbers. When such people are looked around for, they are not found at the addresses provided by them. He said, in the case of the family staying in Bhadudih panchayat, the same could be a cause.
Another reason attributed to for such occurrences was that health workers are given targets for collecting test samples. This creates a pressure on such workers who resort to a short-cut method. They may have records of people like names, addresses and mobile numbers that had been registered and recorded earlier. The health workers use those data to fill the COVID test forms.
On many other occasions, technical glitches create such confusions. A case in point is that of a pregnant lady who was given someone else’s report of COVID positive. In another case in East Singhbhum, a person in Birsanagar had given sample for COVID test in the RTPCR method. But the report that came on October 4 last was generated under Rapid Antigen Test in which 358 was mentioned.