Guwahati Jan 19 PTI Assam on Wednesday reported the highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases for the third day in a row with 8339 people testing positive for the disease Health Minister Keshab Mahanta said The tally in the northeastern state climbed to 670128 with the detection of the fresh cases according to official data Kamrup Metropolitan of which Guwahati city is a part logged 1929 new cases Mahanta said Fifteen more fatalities in the state pushed the toll to 6248 The positivity rate stands at 1289 per cent As many as 64699 sample tests were conducted during the day Mahanta addedPTI SSGRMS RMS

Guwahati Nov 22 PTI Assams Health and Family Welfare Minister Keshab Mahanta on Monday said the government has decided to carry out reforms in the operation of the state-run medical college and hospitals to give better services to the peopleAddressing a press conference here Mahanta said that as a first step towards reforming the system various testing facilities such as MRI CT scan and X-Ray will start functioning in double shifts to cater to more peopleThe number of patients in the medical colleges are very high compared to the infrastructure So we have decided to have double shifts from today Earlier testing for OPDs used to happen from 8 am to 3 pm Now another shift will start from 3 pm to 10 pm he addedThe manpower including technicians and doctors have already been hired for this additional workload in all the medical college and hospitals across the state Mahanta saidThis doubling of shifts is for the general patients and all those coming through the OPD section The testing in the emergency takes place round the clock he saidThe minister said the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital GMCH will now test at least 60 persons per day in MRI against the earlier 30-35 people and 1000 people in X-Ray instead of 500 at presentLikewise we have also decided to double the operation theatre OT availability timing Earlier OT used to operate in one shift in the day time Because of this different departments used to get OT only once in a week Now OTs will function at night too he saidMahanta further said that the government has allowed the hospital management societies to hire contractual staff as and when requiredThe contractual staff will be paid salaries exactly at par with the permanent employees This will ease the situation of manpower shortage in the hospitals We hope that by January-February the government healthcare situation in Assam will improve considerably he said PTI TR SOM SOM