In the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, State Executive Committee (SEC) today issued several instructions with respect to the referral of COVID-19 positive patients to tertiary health care institutions.<br />''<br />''An order issued in this regard stated that the SEC has issued the instructions for strict compliance by the concerned authorities with immediate effect.<br />''<br />''It said that SKIMS Soura, SMHS Hospital Srinagar, Chest Diseases Hospital Srinagar, and SKIMS Medical College & Hospital Bemina, Srinagar in Kashmir division and GMC Jammu, CD Hospital, Jammu and ASCOMS Batra in Jammu division shall be designated as Tertiary care-I institutions and referred to as category-l referral hospitals. It added that all the COVID patients with mild/moderate Symptoms shall first be admitted at sub-district /district level, or any other hospital which is not a category-I referral hospital. Such patients shall not be directly admitted to any category-I referral hospitals.<br />''<br />''Those patients shall be admitted and treated in Category-I referral hospitals only if they are duly referred by a concerned district level hospital or a non-category-I referral hospital.  This will be ensured by all the Chief Medical Officers and supervised by the Deputy Commissioners concerned.<br />''<br />''Divisional Commissioner of  Kashmir and Jammu with the assistance of Director, Health Services, Kashmir/Jammu shall put in place a mechanism to monitor the compliance of the instructions at all levels.<br />''<br />''The order also stated that heads Of the Tertiary care institutions/ category-I referral hospitals shall not deviate from these instructions without the knowledge of Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir/Jammu.<br />''<span style="color: #222222;"><br />''The order further added that any deviation from this order shall attract penal action under the Disaster Management Act.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><br />