Ghaziabad prepares plan for implementing home isolation; hotel isolation may take a beating

A day after the Uttar Pradesh government allowed home isolation for asymptomatic patients of Covid-19 under specific conditions, the Ghaziabad administration on

A day after the Uttar Pradesh government allowed home isolation for asymptomatic patients of Covid-19 under specific conditions, the Ghaziabad administration on Tuesday started preparing an action plan to implement the new isolation system in the district.

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District administration officials said that they will chalk out finer points related to communication with patients, referral system in case of health complication and enforcement of home isolation guidelines. The officials said that the action plan for home isolation will be rolled out by Wednesday.

According to the officials, the move is also likely to release burden on L1 category hospitals while there will be need for more L2 hospitals which the district has only one at present.

“The government has given broad guidelines and now we are trying to fine tune different services and probable outcomes of home isolation. The entire plan will be drafted by Wednesday, and then we will start with home isolation. As per our estimates, those admitted to L1 category facility will opt for home isolation instead of hotel isolation which was recently allowed. Today, three-four hotel owners arrived and withdrew their offer for hotel isolation,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, Ghaziabad district magistrate.

The state government on July 17 had rolled out the hotel isolation scheme for asymptomatic patients, with Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 per day charges. The scheme was launched in Ghaziabad and Lucknow. The government named two hotels in Bajaria area of Ghaziabad for the purpose.

With home isolation scheme now rolled out, the hotel association members feel that hotel isolation will take a hit.

“We feel that there will hardly be any takers for hotel isolation scheme. People will rather opt to stay at home isolation rather than spending money on hotel isolation. We were expecting that it would provide us some income as our customers have drastically reduced to 5-10% in the past two months,” Manoj Gupta, general secretary, Bajaria Hotel Owners’ Association.

“Even if patients opt for hotel isolation, they will be very less in numbers,” he added.

Meanwhile, the district officials also held a detailed meeting on Tuesday and discussed several proposals.

According to sources, the officials have planned that several teams of doctors aged over 55 years, who are not allowed active Covid-19 duties as per government directions, will be formed in the district control room to take up health status of home isolated patients on daily basis.

“Each team will be assigned a group of patients in home isolation for taking up their health status daily. Further, we are also considering that a patient will be called for physical examination to ascertain his health status. He/she will also have to disclose history of his/her previous ailments and details of the care giver,” said an officer from the health department.

“The patient is also expected to click photograph of his house on his mobile phone. We may also seek details of about three-four of his neighbours to ascertain if the patient has available facilities in his house or not,” the officer, requesting anonymity, added.

The state government has allowed home isolation with certain conditions -- an undertaking of compliance of guidelines will be submitted by the patient; consulting doctor will declare patient as asymptomatic; patient to ensure 24 hours availability of care giver; minimum two separate toilets and separate home quarantine facility should be available at home and patient will have to purchase a medical kit having pulse oxymeter, thermometer, mask, gloves, among other things.

The officials expect that the number of patients in L1 category hospitals will also come down as the home isolation is implemented. “In this context, we will now be converting our L1 facility at ESIC Hospital, Sahibabad, into L2 category hospital. The facility has 76 beds. The health department will make arrangements,” Pandey added.