E-Paper
J&K resident alleges chaos, negligence at sample collection centre in Kathua
Recalling ordeal, 35-year-old says spent two nights with family in his car outside sampling centre.
It’s been over two months since the Covid-19 lockdown was enforced across India, but the allegations of mismanagement and chaos at quarantine and sample collection centres refuse to die down in Jammu and Kashmir.
Recalling a nightmarish experience at a sample collection centre set up in Radha Soami Ashram in Thandi Khui area of Samba district, a 35-year-old man said, “I spent two nights with my wife and children, aged eight months and two years, in my car at the ashram as there was huge rush of people returning to J&K. In the name of social distancing and hygiene, there was only one common bathroom, which was dirty, and the mere thought of it being used by infected persons sent shivers down my spine.”
Hussain had applied for inter-state travel on April 22 to bring home his wife and two children from Himachal Pradesh’s Nurpur. He was eventually given permission on May 17 and his ordeal began on May 19.
“On May 19, I left Bari Brahmana in Samba district in my car, reached Nurpur and returned with my wife and two children the same evening, but our samples were taken on May 21 around 3.30pm,” he said.
Thereafter, Hussain was shifted on May 21 evening to a quarantine centre where he was kept for five more days.
Our samples were sent to GMCH Srinagar and after we got a message on our phone that we had been tested negative, we were issued a pass to go home, he said.
A senior doctor at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Jammu, admitted that there was mismanagement on the part of the administration.
“Sample reports are being delayed because there is a massive burden on the testing labs. I have requested the administration to streamline the system. For instance, limit of samples should be set according to the testing capacity of all the labs,” the senior doctor said.
In all, J&K has four government testing labs.
The doctor recalled a recent event wherein 70 returnees were brought to GMCH Jammu in a bus for testing.
“They told me that their samples had not been taken for the past seven days. They were full of other complaints. In the scorching heat, they were dropped at the hospital by a naib tehsildar. This is how the administration is combating Covid-19,” he said.
Recently, J&K returnees housed in quarantine centres like MA Stadium in Jammu, Dhalwas and Dharmund in Ramban had complained about poor food, inadequate water and plastic bedsheets.
When asked about the alleged negligence, Samba district magistrate Rohit Khajuria said, “We have put up barricades and made separate enclosures to ensure social distancing, but when 2,000 people come at once and say 10 among them defy the protocol, it is hard to check that. Cops cannot be deployed with each and every person.”
On the delay in sampling reports, he said initially there was pendency, but now everything has been streamlined.
“For the past three to four days, there has been no pendency. Initially, J&K had only two government testing labs, but now there are four and some private as well. Testing capacity has been increased to 8,000 tests per day. When there is such a big task at hand, it takes time to streamline things,” Khajuria said.
Khajuria also clarified that the said ashram has 500 toilets and as many bathrooms, which all are clean.
“In fact, the ashram office-bearers revealed that many people were not using the toilets, but defecating on the premises. People themselves were creating a mess,” he added.
About the re-sampling, he said it might have happened in “two or three cases”. “It is easy to criticise. Ask these people to come and work with us for 10 days,” he said.
