Delhi doctor couple quarantined together caught up with friends and each other

So far, at least 51 healthcare workers across the city have contracted the disease.

Getting back in touch with old friends and spending hours talking to his wife – this summed up the experience of Dr Mohinder Sardana, 62, at the isolation facility of Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, Rohini, where he was admitted after testing positive for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). His wife, Poonam Sardana, 61, a gynaecologist who worked at the same clinic, was also infected and admitted to the same room.

A total of 1,154 people in the city have contracted the infection and 24 have died of it. (Sonu Mehta/HT file photo. Representative image)

“The facilities at the hospital were great; I got to share a room with my wife. We were served good breakfast, lunch and dinner. The doctors and staff were very nice and polite. But 14 days is a long time. I called up my friends from medical college and some people I haven’t talked to in years. My wife and I also had the time to just sit and talk to each other, which we miss out during our routine,” Dr Sardana said. He also used the time to watch some movies on his phone and read up a little.

“I even got calls from some of my patients who came to know that I had Covid-19,” he said. He and his wife were discharged on Monday after testing negative for the infection twice consecutively.

Dr Sardana has been working at his clinic in North Delhi’s GTB Nagar for 38 years now. He has been treating people with fever and cough for as long as he can remember, but one such patient who came to his clinic in the first two weeks of March passed on the infection to him.

Watch: Delhi’s Dr Mohinder Sardana’s coronavirus experience in isolation ward

“I had a slight fever on March 23, nothing out of the ordinary. So, I just had paracetamol and got back to work. Two days later, the fever came back. I also developed a cough that worsened the next day. This got me worried. I closed my clinic and went to get myself tested at one of the private labs. The report came back positive for Covid-19,” Sardana said.

A total of 1,154 people in the city have contracted the infection and 24 have died of it.

Once he tested positive, his wife – a gynaecologist who works at the same clinic – their maid, and five employees went to Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital to get tested for the infection.

“They collected our samples and admitted all of us to the isolation ward in the hospital,” Dr Sardana said. His wife and one of their employees tested positive for the infection on March 30.

“I must have passed on the infection to her, as she had stopped going to the clinic about a week before the nationwide lockdown was announced. But what is concerning is that the surveillance teams haven’t been able to trace who passed on the infection to me,” Dr Sardana said.

The surveillance teams collected the details of hundreds of patients who had visited his clinic about a week before he started showing symptoms. “My register was locked at the clinic, so I provided some of the numbers on my phone. They also tracked my phone to find the other people I might have come in contact with. They also screened people in a 2km radius of my clinic, but nobody was found positive,” he said.

Apart from the fever and cough he had for a couple of days, he did not experience any other symptoms. “As for my wife and employee, their symptoms were even milder. They just had a body ache for a couple of days, took some pain medicine and were fine,” Dr Sardana said.

“If the symptoms are so mild, how can we expect to know who is Covid-19 positive and who is not? I am a doctor; I suspected it so I got myself tested. Nobody else would even think of getting the test done for such mild symptoms,” he said.