Selective treatment of COVID patients
Patients allege poor facilities in COVID Care Centers
Govind Sharma
JAMMU, Aug 13: The selective treatment is allegedly being given to COVID-19 positive patients in Jammu by the J&K administration. While VIPs contracted with the Coronavirus are being sent to private hospitals like Narayana Superspeciality Hospital in Katra or ASCOMS & Hospital Sidhra, other COVID positive people are being kept in CD Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital or Yatri Bhawan, which lack proper facilities and are stinking with insanitary condition.
Excelsior received numerous anynomous calls of COVID positive patients from Yatri Bhawan, CD Hospital and Psychiatric Hospital claiming insanitation, poor lodging, bedding and food facilities. Expressing concern over the poor facilities in these COVID care centers, they said that they are feeling harassed and are worried about their health as there is so much insanitation in the COVID care centers.
Several patients who spoke to Excelsior narrated the agony due to the poor standard of facilities and inedible and unhygienic food served to them. They said on the name of treatment, there is nothing in these COVID care centers except paracetamol tablets and they are worried over getting any other infection there.
A middle-aged patient putting up at Yatri Bhawan complained of poor hygiene in bathrooms. He said that they are bound to share bathrooms while unhygienic food is being served to them. Even for our basic needs, we have to wait for long, he added.
“The quality of the food being served to us is very bad. One cannot eat the food served here but there is no one to address our grievances,” said another patient from CD Hospital, Jammu. He said the Government is spending around Rs 800 per day on the food of a patient but on the ground, even Rs 100 are not being spent. In whose pockets, this money is going?, he questioned.
A patient admitted in Psychiatric Hospital said that the reporting of the samples are being deliberately delayed by those at the helm of affairs to keep the patients for more time in these COVID care centers so that they can make huge bills.
“Government is advising people to get admitted in State-run hospitals, but the situation here is deplorable. I was ready to shift myself in ASCOMS Hospital on my own expenses but I was not permitted,” said a businessman admitted in Yatri Bhawan. He lamented that J&JK administration is giving selective treatment to COVID patients.
“While bureaucrats and politicians are being kept in ASCOMS & Hospital and Narayana Superspeciaility Hospital in Katra, the common masses are being shifted in CD Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital and Yatri Bhawan, where due to insanitation, the premises are stinking and the food quality is worst,” he added.
Another patient from CD Hospital said that even in building of 200-bedded Maternity Hospital at Gandhi Nagar, only doctors and some influential people are being kept. She said this selective type of treatment by the administration is condemnable and unbearable. “We are also from this UT and pay regular tax from our earnings, then why such a discrimination,” he questioned and demanded LG Manoj Sinha to order enquiry into the matter and punish the guilty.
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