As cases of coronavirus mount in India, the government has amped up vigil and set up quarantine facilities to contain the spread of the infection.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, while making a statement in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, 17 March, said a lot of response appreciating the high quality treatment at quarantine facilities has been received, according to The Hindu.
He also sought MPs across party lines to help him with the feedback to improve the condition of quarantine facilities.
According to Health Ministry’s latest data, out of the 126 cases detected in the country, 13 people have recovered after being quarantined.
While a 45-year-old businessman from Delhi's Mayur Vihar, who has fully recovered from the infection and thus been discharged from Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, said his quarantine was "nothing less than a luxury hotel".
However, accounts of unhygienic facilities in other parts of the country have cropped up on social media.
Responding to a question on the hygiene in the quarantine facilities, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry, Lav Agarwal, on Monday, 16 March, said, “All states have been advised. We have also advised them what are the minimum prerequisites which need to be organised when it comes to taking care of the quarantine facilities. What type of measures have to be adopted. So we are constantly in touch with the states and we are following it up with them.”
Earlier on Monday, a Twitter user, Navya Dua, highlighted the abysmal condition of a quarantine facility in Dwarka, saying that she landed at Delhi Airport on 16 March from Spain, after which she was subjected to the 14-day quarantine at a government facility in Dwarka’s police training school.
Attaching a video of the facility, Dua says, “I won’t say anything I just give some videos of our *sanitized* accommodation.”
Another Twitter user, Ankit Gupta, posted pictures of stained sinks, unhygienic beds, and stray cats at Mumbai’s Kasturba Hospital.
“These bad conditions with poor sanitation, reckless staff attitude will not help contain the pandemic,” Gupta tweeted.
Another Twitter user shared an image of a filthy bathroom at a facility where her daughter has been taken. “So this is where they have taken my daughter and telling her Tap water piyo ..... are these b******* mad . Now I understand why ppl are running away (sic),” she said.
Her daughter, Rhea Bhalla, also shared pictures and videos of the unhygienic quarantine facility. She alleged that no tests were conducted properly and that no food or water was provided to them.
“We are all stuck here. There is no water. The washroom condition is so bad, I have no symptoms or anything. No test is being conducted. After fighting for water then we were given water bottles. After 8-9 hours they gave us some street food which was not eatable,” she wrote, adding that she has never been so tortured in her life.
‘Major Concern Now Is People Fleeing Quarantine Facilities’
While the government is stepping up efforts to screen everyone, reports of several dodging hospitals without undergoing the tests have emerged across the country.
Three suspected coronavirus patients who had been quarantined, left a government hospital in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district on Saturday evening without informing anybody.
A 56-year-old Harayana native, who was admitted in the isolation ward of the medical college hospital on Saturday, gave the slip to hospital authorities shortly after admission, but was later traced, police said.
The spouse of a Google employee in Bengaluru, who was placed under quarantine after her husband tested positive for COVID-19, allegedly defied health emergency protocol and now faces legal proceedings.
With instances of people fleeing quarantine facilities, several Twitter users pointed out that they are bound to run away with the kind of isolation wards being provided.
“People are afraid of being stuck up in quarantine & not receiving proper facilities or sanitation or medical care - Those fears are genuine,” a Twitter user said.
Others pointed out that quarantining those infected is not enough and that it’s important to monitor and provide the right facilities.
The major concern for India right now is people who have tested positive for coronavirus running away from hospitals and quarantine facilities, another user said.
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