Indore: Tall claims of the district health department to provide better facilities to people and staff at quarantine centers fell flat on Tuesday when nursing staff of the quarantine centre at Asarawad complained that they had not been provided with any safety equipment and there were no guidelines for the people admitted there.
Talking to Free Press, one of the nursing staff posted at Asarawad informed that as many as 89 people had been kept in the quarantine centre but there were no guidelines given to the nursing staff about how to handle the patients, and the patients too had not been told anything.
“We are seven nurses who are working in three shifts in the quarantine centre. We have recently joined the department and were directed sent to the quarantine centre without any information or training,” the staff nurse said. The same nurse also alleged that duty doctors too are not coming to examine the patients. "The doctors too are not coming to the room where the patients are kept."
She added that people kept in the centre are not following any social distancing. “They are roaming in groups in the centre and not even listening to us. Department has not provided any protective kits to us except one N95 masks and a few gloves,” she added.
The nursing staff was earlier kept in the same building where the coronavirus suspects were kept. Later, they were shifted to another building but the suspects are entering that building without any protective masks.
“Along with security, we are also facing hygiene problem here as no guidelines of biomedical waste disposal is being followed. We are afraid if any of these people tested positive we too will surely get infected,” the staff added.
One of their friends also shared the matter on social media after which senior health officials changed their duty and told them to rest for few days from Wednesday.
A major negligence of the higher ups came to the fore on Tuesday as out of the 17 positive patients found on Tuesday, some were kept in quarantine at Asarawad.These suspected patients were all roaming around freely and chances are they might have infected others also.
Surprisingly, department didn't isolate these patients till late evening. Their excuse was that they did not have the list of positive patients .
A senior health officer said orders have been given to isolate all those who have tested positive.
