Bhubaneswar, Jan. 12: The state health and family welfare department is going to set up district public health laboratories (DPHL) in all the district headquarters for conducting tests relating to communicable, non-communicable and life style diseases.

District headquarters hospitals and community health centres have pathology laboratories but these are not equipped for conducting tests relating to critical diseases. The existing infrastructure at these hospitals is being upgraded for conducting such tests.

These DPHLs will work under the chief district medical officers (CDMO) and the state government has sanctioned Rs 8 crore for the DPHLs in all the districts.

Officials hope the new laboratories will be functional from August this year.

Kailash Chandra Das, director, public health, said these laboratories would have CBC machines (complete blood count), Elisa (Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) machine that can test dengue, HIV, Hepatitis B, A, E and other such diseases, auto analyser for testing blood sugar, blood lipid profile, urea, creatinine, sodium and potassium content in blood and urine. These machines were not available at the district level earlier and hospitals were forced to send blood samples of such cases to medical colleges.

Apart from these machines, 14 other modern testing machines and equipment would also be installed in 20 districts. Once these equipment become functional, many more tests would be possible at the district-level hospitals bringing down the workload of medical college hospitals. 'We have started providing training to the existing technicians in these district level hospitals so that they can conduct tests in the new laboratories,' said Das.

In another development, health and family welfare minister, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak today inaugurated the process of floating e-tenders by the newly formed Odisha State Medical Corporation Limited (OSMCL) for procuring medicines and medical equipment for all the 32 district headquarter hospitals, three government medical colleges, Sishu Bhavan and the Acharya Harihara Cancer Centre.

'The e-tender process will ensure transparency and the OSMCL will take care of the procurement and monitoring of free drug distribution system inthe state,' said Nayak.

Roopa Mishra, managing director of OSMCL, said that these medicines would be kept in the warehouses constructed in the districts and will be provided to patients free of cost. Several steps have been taken to reduce wastage of medicines in warehouses while ensuring transparency in free drugs distribution.

Earlier, the State Drug Management Unit (SDMU) was procuring medicine and providing it to district headquarter hospitals and to community and public health centres. But due to lack of proper monitoring, medicines were being wasted in bulk instead of reaching the needy people.

While the newly formed OSMCL will procure and distribute medicines and equipment and manage the procurement and distribution system, SDMU will take care managing the drug distribution centres in the hospitals, prescription analysis and preparing essential drug lists by following standard guidelines.

Swine flu

The authorities of the private hospital where the state's first swine flu patient has been admitted said that the victims was recovering from the deadly H1N1 virus.

A 65-year-old man from Athantar village of Khurda was admitted on January 6 following symptoms of flu and it was confirmed on Saturday that he was infected by the H1N1 virus.

Health and family welfare minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak said: 'The situation is under control and the patient is recovering.'