Jammu, Sep 22 (PTI) The Jammu and Kashmir administration will install 150 CCTV cameras in government medical college (GMC) hospital, a dedicated COVID-19 facility here, to closely monitor its performance, officials said.

Authorities have also directed top health officials that all non-symptomatic COVID-19 patients should be discharged after a 10-day stay in hospitals without any subsequent testing for the disease, they said.

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These decisions were taken by Financial Commissioner Health and Medical Education Atul Dullo and Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam, who chaired a meeting to take stock of efforts toward mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic and review the related Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and policies, an official spokesman said.

In the wake of the surge in COVID-19 cases in the Jammu province, the principal of GMC hospital was asked to ensure an adequate supply of oxygen and other essentials in the hospital, besides the recruitment of adequate manpower to overcome the problems during this pandemic, he said.

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The chief secretary directed the installation of 150 CCTVs at the GMC for better patient management and monitoring, besides establishing a special COVID counter in the emergency block of the hospital to act as one point contact of coronavirus testing and the subsequent segregation of symptomatic, asymptomatic and negative cases, the spokesman said.

The Health and Medical Education Department was asked to conduct serological surveys and antibody tests to ascertain the spread of infection and associated immunity in the population, he said.

While reviewing the discharge policy, the chief secretary said that it has been successful in lessening the burden on the tertiary health care system.

In this regard, the concerned officers were directed to discharge the non-symptomatic patients in the hospitals after 10 days without conducting any subsequent tests, the spokesman said.

The concerned officers were directed to strictly implement the home isolation guidelines for asymptomatic patients and ensure that they are free of co-morbidities and provided with government-sponsored oxymeters, before being sent to home quarantine, besides using the Arogya Setu app to monitor their status, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)