Shelter home caretaker tests positive, inmates demand screening for all, many suffer from comorbidities

A day after a 32-year-old caretaker of a shelter in central Delhi’s Jhandewalan area tested positive for Covid-19, occupants of four such homes run by an NGO in

A day after a 32-year-old caretaker of a shelter in central Delhi’s Jhandewalan area tested positive for Covid-19, occupants of four such homes run by an NGO in the area said on Tuesday that all of them should be screened for the infection. According to officials, there are 56 inmates at the shelter whose caretaker tested positive and 206 in the entire cluster.

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The NGO working for the homeless wrote to the central Delhi district magistrate and other authorities, urging them to test all caretakers and occupants of all shelters in the city as they share community toilets and other facilities.

Besides the 223 regular shelter homes for the homeless—115 of them are portacabins, 11 are buildings and 19 are tents—the government has converted 256 school buildings into shelters for migrant workers stranded in the city due to the lockdown. According to officials, there are a total 3,725 inmates at all the shelters across the city.

“The caretaker was responsible for shelter number 14 and was working day and night to provide food and other forms of assistance to occupants,” Sunil Kumar Aledia, a social activist working for the homeless and founder of Centre for Holistic Development, wrote in a letter to the DM.

Aledia said any delay in providing medical care to these homeless persons would put their lives at risk as well as others who may come in contact with them at community toilets, ration shops, pharmacies and other such places.

According to district health officials, on April 27, the caretaker had complained of body ache and was taken to Lady Hardinge Hospital where his sample was sent for testing. On May 1, his test report confirmed him positive but he could go to collect the report only on May 4. He has been transferred to a quarantine facility in AIIMS Jhajjar.

Nidhi Srivastava, DM (central) said, “We got to know about the caretaker testing positive late Monday night. We have started screening occupants with symptoms at the cluster of shelters at Jhandewalan. We had been carrying out selective screening earlier also, and will extend the exercise to other shelters in the district.”

Several homeless persons at these shelters, including the elderly, are already suffering from ailments such as TB, HIV, as well as withdrawal symptoms from lack of substance abuse amid the lockdown.

“The inmates have, on several occasions, complained of fever, sore throat and dehydration besides their long-standing ailments but their Covid tests have not been conducted. Even if one of them has the infection, it can spread to so many others who are housed with them or the staff working in the shelters. The government must understand the seriousness of the issue and test all these people,” Aledia said.

Bipin Rai, member, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), the nodal agency for making arrangements of stay for the homeless in the city, said he is aware of the case and plans to prioritise batches of people for treatment based on where symptoms are being reported. “We will start with the areas where the need for testing is higher. The district health teams have been already put on the task,” Rai said.