the goan I network
PORVORIM
Covid cases in Porvorim constituency have continued to rise and the Porvorim Primary Health Centre (PHC) has now overtaken Ponda PHC to record the second highest Covid active cases in the State after the Margao Urban Health Centre (UHC).
According to the official Covid update on Monday, Porvorim PHC recorded 313 Covid active cases, only behind the Margao UHC (418) and ahead of the Ponda PHC and the Sankhali CHC (300).
Meanwhile, three more staff at the Porvorim PHC tested positive, taking the total number of PHC staff having tested positive to the virus to seven.
Despite the acute shortage of available staff, the PHC resumed Covid testing on people on Monday.
When contacted, an official at Porvorim PHC admitted that if additional staff are infected with Covid, the PHC may have to be temporarily shut down.
“The PHC staff are also human beings and there is a limit to which the existing staff can handle the increased workload in the absence of their colleagues who are recovering from Covid. If we suspend Covid testing operations for a day, people immediately start making a noise and they even go to the extent of highlighting the issue on social media without realising the difficulties confronting the PHC staff. If more staff at the PHC are infected with Covid, we may have to shut down the PHC for some time.”
The official informed that Covid testing is conducted not only for residents of Porvorim, but also for people residing in and around places like Ramnagar, Sangolda, Reis Magos and Guirim.
“Due to staff shortage, work has been badly affected. There is a heavy backlog of samples to be tested, while the administrative work pertaining to the samples is also pending.”
“On Monday, antigen tests were carried out on people and five persons tested positive, of which four are from Socorro and one is from Torda. Results of the swab tests will be available later,” the official added.
