‘No Cleanliness in My Sonipat COVID Centre, Added Risk To Health’

It’s worrying me that the hospital authorities are also not wearing any mask or maintaining any social distancing.

The conditions in the COVID centre in Sonipat are so horrible that I feel like my health is getting worse.

(Photo: Arnica Kala/Altered by The Quint)

My health is getting worse. There are no doctors that come for checkups. The condition of food and washrooms is really bad. There's no water supply in one of them and no one even comes for cleaning the same.

This is what I, a business analyst in Gurugram, is facing after my family and I voluntarily got tested for COVID-19 on 31 August. Along with my father, mother, and brother, I also tested positive.

Due to the coronavirus lockdown, I was staying at my hometown in Sonipat, Haryana with my family. On 30 August, my brother Nitin, a student, developed symptoms of coronavirus and immediately rushed to the hospital to get tested. Subsequently, he was quarantined in the hospital itself.

The next day, an ambulance came and sealed our house where I, along with my family, were already in-home quarantine. People from the hospital told us to reach the hospital for the tests and we followed only to get forced into hospital quarantine.

The COVID-19 care center is a hostel of the Bhagat Phool Singh Government Medical College situated in Khanpur. We are living here in substandard conditions and the center lacks in facilitating primary services. The hospital has no basic amenities. We would have been fine if the situation of the hospital was not this bad.

State of the water dispenser.(Photo Courtesy: Payal Kukreja)

We get our water from a tap that is covered by a cloth, so that it gets filtered.

‘Docs Don’t Come to Us, We Have to Go to Them’

There are no doctors that come for the checkups, we have to go down every day for our temperature check. Also, in total, they have given us three medicines and we only have to go to the common area to get them.

Some washrooms don't even have a water supply and not a single person comes for cleaning the washrooms. Just like the condition of the toilets, sanitation is also poor.

I am staying in hostel number 13 and there is a number painted on the wall, which carries the words “if there’s any problem, please reach out”. However, when I called them to schedule a doctor’s checkup, the reply was not helpful at all.

(Photo Courtesy: Payal Kukreja)

The person on the other end of the call said, “We did not ask you to come to the hospital, it was your choice to come to the hospital for the checkup and now you have to stay here only and the doctors are not here now.”

As my health worsens, I am also concerned about seeing people ignoring COVID-19 related norms. Even hospital authorities do not enforce strictness to maintain the critical elements of measures to contain the virus, ie, social distancing and wearing a mask.

Everyone stands very close to each other in a line to get the medicines and the food. No social distancing norms are being followed. People sit and talk with each other freely, sometimes without masks.

I have left my bedridden grandmother at home and I am rigorously searching solutions for myself and family so that we can have permission for home isolation.

Hospital authorities are not ready to cooperate with us. We requested them to allow us to home quarantine. They said to get permission from the CMO. Although I have tweeted about it and also got a response from the CMO, no one has contacted me for further follow up.

(Photo Courtesy: Payal Kukreja)

The problem is not in following the norms and staying in hospitals but we, at least, as human beings, deserve better treatment.

After being quarantined at the government COVID care center, I realised staying home would have been a better option anyway. But, as per the communicated guidelines from the hospital staff, I couldn't get the permission for home quarantine from CMO.

I am feeling depressed after coming here. Everyone is a COVID patient and we all use the same washrooms, which are not even cleaned daily. We are just waiting for the day we can get home. We are not even in a state of mind to think much.

(The Quint has also reached out to the COVID-19 centre and their response will be added once received.)

(All ‘My Report' branded stories are submitted by citizen journalists to The Quint. Though The Quint inquires into the claims/allegations from all parties before publishing, the report and the views expressed above are the citizen journalist's own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for the same.)