Suhail Bhat
Srinagar Apr 15: The patients who recovered from the COVID-19 alleged that authorities forced them into quarantine in makeshift quarantine centre at Sumbal area of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district despite doctors advising for home quarantine.
The persons lamented that they are unable to follow the preventive measures in the centre owing to the lack of adequate infrastructure and fear reactivation of the disease. “We were advised to take extreme care, but multiple persons share the same washroom here. It is also difficult to maintain the distance here,” a patient who recovered from the diseases told Excelsior. He was released from Srinagar’s Chest and Diseases hospital along with 12 other patients on Tuesday.
Out of the 13-patients who were discharged from CD-hospital, three persons were disallowed to go home and placed under administrative quarantine at the Shilwat centre in Sumbal area. All there are the residents of Hajin area of Bandipora which had been declared Red zone by the administration.
They said that the doctors at the CD hospital clearly advised them home quarantine, the administration did not allow them to go home. “The doctors at the Hajin hospital disallowed us to go our respective homes,” one of the patients said. He added that authorities forcibly took them to the centre after they resisted. “We showed them the advice of doctors but they called the police and took us forcibly to the quarantine centre,” he said.
Apart from these three, there are around 5- recovered patients in the quarantine centre. They were discharged last week from the SKIMS hospital.
Officials, however, said that they are confused over the varied nature of advice doctors have advised to the patients. “Five persons have been advised administrative quarantine while the remaining three were asked to undergo home quarantine. This is the source of confusion. We are looking into it. We do not want to take chances,” an official said.
The Chief Medical officer Bandipora and Block Medical officer Hajin did not respond to multiple calls of this reporter.
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