Hospital Asks Kanika Kapoor to Stop Throwing Tantrums of a Star

“I feel like I am in jail,” she said in an interview.

Singer Kanika Kapoor.

(Photo Courtesy: Instagram)

Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, the hospital in Lucknow where singer Kanika Kapoor is being quarantined and treated after she was tested positive for COVID-19 has asked the singer ‘to cooperate and not throw tantrums of a star’. Dr RK Dhiman, Director of Sanjay Gandhi PGIMS, has reportedly put out a statement which says, “Kanika Kapoor has been provided the best that is possible in a hospital. She must co-operate as a patient and not throw tantrums of a star. She is being provided a Gluten-Free Diet from Hospital Kitchen. She has to co-operate with us. The facility provided to her is an isolated room with a toilet, patient-bed and a television. The ventilation of her room is air-conditioned with a separate Air Handling Unit for Covid-19 unit. Utmost care is being taken but she must first start behaving as a patient and not a star”.

On Friday, 20 March, Kanika was put under quarantine at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medicial Sciences (SGPIMS) in Lucknow. The singer had accused the staff of treating her poorly. She told Times of India that when she asked for food after being admitted, she was only given “two small bananas and an orange that had flies on it”. She alleged that the room she is staying in “has mosquitoes and is full of dust”. She also claimed that when she asked a doctor to have her room cleaned, he responded saying she should not expect the kind of treatment she would get at a five-star hotel. “I am being ill-treated here and it feels like I'm in jail. They are behaving as if I am a criminal for no fault of mine,” she told the publication.

Singer Kanika Kapoor, who had tested positive for the coronavirus, had earlier spoken out after being called out for failing to self-isolate after she returned to India from the UK on 9 March. In an interview with Times of India, she dismissed rumours that she had dodged the authorities and insisted that she was “properly screened at Mumbai airport”. The singer defended herself by saying that she exhibited no known symptoms of COVID-19 at the time and decided to fly to Lucknow to meet her family on 11 March. She tried to justify her actions claiming, “At that time there was no advisory issued by the government on anyone travelling from abroad to be under self-quarantine.”

She admitted to attending “a small birthday bash” in Lucknow, along with several bureaucrats, including Vasundhara Raje and Dushyant Singh. Kanika went on to claim that she called state helpline numbers when she felt flu-like symptoms coming on. However, she says they tried to dissuade her saying that she likely did not have the coronavirus.

“It was only after I pestered them that the CMO sent people to take my samples. I was the one who pestered the authorities, who I felt were taking things lightly. It took them three days to send someone to collect my sample and test it. From Monday till then, I had confined myself to my room. The moment I felt sick, I called up the authorities. So tell me, who’s been lax?” she claimed.

Kanika has been booked for negligence by the Lucknow police, and a criminal complaint has been filed against her in a Bihar court, accusing her of neglecting and disobeying an order issued by a public servant to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.