Had there been such residential quarters already in campuses or near it, a lot of public money spent on hotels could have been saved.
Lack of manpower can only explain cancelation of post-deployment quarantine; it doesn’t explain outright denial of quarantine quarters during the period of COVID deployment itself.
It is hard to ignore the abrupt and suspicious timing of this decision that coincides with the nationwide doctors’ protests. Hospital-hotel quarantine model was always expensive, but it rapidly became unsustainable when the doctors started protesting. Dissent is always expensive.
This epidemic has laid bare the neglect of public health care by successive governments, their lack of respect for HCWs and utter disregard for their lives, whether they work in Anganwadis or in apex medical centres.
One would have hoped that desperation, despair and dead bodies of 5 lakh Indians, including those of 1200 doctors, 120 registered nurses and 150 ASHAs would make our political establishment re-evaluate its priorities, but alas, the lives of Indian citizens, including those whom we call lifesavers, continue to remain one of the cheapest in the free world.
Who needs Wuhan when we have Lutyens’? The point source of this endemic of indifference in India has been on since long before COVID-19.
May be after decades of malnutrition deaths, we’re past those the point where 5 lakh dead Indians would been a matter of national security or where safety of the families of our COVID warriors would have been a national priority.
Quarantine rooms were our barracks and bunkers in this war. They not only protected our families from catching infection from us but also saved us from catching COVID from our family.
Maintaining a healthy working population of doctors and nurses is exactly what this policy is failing, leaving everyone vulnerable. It’s a security failure.
Ours is a society in which quarters for our living heroes are deemed too expensive but palaces for dead gods aren’t.
In a civilized society, no HCW should been denied provision of quarantine quarters for the duration of COVID deployment. It’s more of a matter of basic decency and ethics than epidemiology. Non-COVID patient shouldn’t catch COVID in hospitals.
In a rational society, the isolation period should be increased back to 7 days from 5. Medical personnel who have completed their seven days isolation should test negative for Antigen on two consecutive days. RAT tests before rejoining is the bare minimum to ensure safety of our patients.
Any solution to the current crisis has to take into account the biology of this contagious pathogen and safety of patients and the personnel who treat them. Policies should not be devoid of science and empathy. Families of young doctors shouldn’t be punished. Choosing the life of a healer is their crime and their alone.
I hope when another virus brings another pandemic upon our unprepared Infrastructure, it’s just another wave and not a tsunami like the one we witnessed in the summer of 2021.
(The writer is general secretary of Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum. Views are personal)
