Parveen Arora
Tribune News Service
Karnal, May 25
Around 720-bed village-level isolation centres, set up in 50 villages around 10-day ago, have been lying vacant as asymptomatic patients in these villages prefer staying at home. In fact, at present 48 out of 50 isolation centres do not have any patient. The remaining two have one or two patients at present, said officials associated with the project.
Personal care, better hygiene and lesser chances of aggravation of infection at home are some of the issues that weigh on the minds of asymptomatic Covid patients, due to which they prefer home quarantine to village-level isolation centres. Besides a check on freedom and social stigma of being exposed to a Covid patient are also considered to be reasons behind it.
After a surge in the rural areas, the Health Department had identified 50 hotspot villages and village-level isolation facilities with an average 10 beds capacity, at schools, primary healthcare centres, community centres, Radha Soami Satsang Bhawan and other places in the district.
As many as 818 patients tested positive in these 50 villages in the past few days. Of them, so far, only 15 patients at a couple of centres preferred the village-level isolation centres, while the remaining preferred home isolation.
Each centre has team comprising ANM, lab technician, multi-purpose health worker, one teacher and one data entry operator. They keep vigil on the saturation of oxygen, temperature and provide medicine. Similarly, nine CHC and sub-division level centres with the capacity of around 216 oxygen beds had also been established, where doctors, paramedical staff had been deployed for the patients. However, couple of CHCs have patients, said an official.
"I have sufficient space at my house so I preferred home isolation," said Suresh Kumar of Nilokheri block.
Similarly, Rajiv, another patient, said there was freedom at home, whereas there were many restrictions at the isolation centre.
Gaurav Kumar, CEO, Zila Parishad and nodal officer of the village isolation centres, said they had deployed teams for the door-to-door screening and were encouraging patients who did not have sufficient space at their homes for isolation at these centres. "We have started providing free food in these isolation centres. We expect occupancy to go up with this move," he said.
More freedom at home, less at facility
- Personal care, better hygiene and lesser chances of aggravation of infection at home are some of the issues that weigh on the minds of asymptomatic patients, due to which they prefer home quarantine to village-level isolation centres.
- Check on freedom at the village isolation centre and social stigma of being exposed to a Covid patient are also considered to be reasons behind it.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2TabqGE
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