Odisha cancer patient refused entry in the house by landlord due to Covid-19 scare

Suresh Sharma, diagnosed with throat cancer, had travelled from Balasore’s Sahadevkhunta area to a private hospital in Bhubaneswar on April 14 to consult with the doctors following some complications.

The surging fears and stigma over coronavirus forced a 60-year-old cancer patient in coastal Odisha town of Balasore to spend over 8 hours outside his rented home after the landlord refused to let him and his family enter the house.

Suresh Sharma, diagnosed with throat cancer, had travelled from Balasore’s Sahadevkhunta area to a private hospital in Bhubaneswar on April 14. (HT Photo)

Suresh Sharma, diagnosed with throat cancer, had travelled from Balasore’s Sahadevkhunta area to a private hospital in Bhubaneswar on April 14 to consult with the doctors following some complications.

After taking due permissions from the district administration, Sharma had travelled to Bhubaneswar with his wife and two sons. However, they were denied entry by the house owner Laxmidhar Bhuyan, a serving colonel in Indian Army as the Sharmas were travelling from Bhubaneswar, a Covid-19 hotspot with over 30 cases.

“My parents and my two brothers (37-year-old and 25-year-old) were not allowed entry inside the rented house as the house owner said they should spend 14 days in quarantine before entering. My father needs special meals every hour, yet he had to skip his meals and had to sit outside the rented home between 12.30 pm and 8 pm today. The house owner was stubborn not to allow him and my family members entry,” said Asha Sharma, daughter of the cancer patient.

The district administration led by Balasore additional district magistrate Sambit Kumar Nayak arrived at the spot to reason with the house owner to let him enter, but he did not see reason till the deputy Superintendent of police Manoj Rout spoke to him over phone.

“The house owner agreed to let Sharma and his wife enter the house, but did not allow his two sons. He has asked the two sons to be on quarantine for 14 days,” said Rout.

The incident came three days after people in Sundargarh district did not allow cremation of a 50-year-old tribal woman who had died of tuberculosis suspecting her death due to coronavirus. On the morning of April 13, Shanti Tanti (50) of Kumarmunda in Sundargarh district succumbed to tuberculosis at VSS Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (VIMSAR) in western Odisha district of Sambalpur. As her daily wager husband Suresh Tanti did not have enough cash to hire an ambulance to take the body to native place, three young doctors of the hospital - senior resident doctor Shankar Ramchandani and post graduate students Tushar Behera and Rajesh Meher – came forward and crowd-funded Rs 4,600 for the ambulance charge.

However when the body of the woman reached Kumarmunda after travelling 220 km, villagers refused to allow the body to enter the village limits alleging that the tribal woman had died of Coronavirus and her body could be source of infection. The man returned with the body of her wife, but still could not cremate the body at public crematorium as he did not Aadhaar card of the deceased.

“The man was already in the throes of the biggest tragedy of his life and then people were further stigmatising him. No one was willing to understand that when government medical college has allowed a body to be cremated in village, the death is surely not due to Covid-19. As doctors, we could not sit silent and went to crematorium. In our presence, the body was cremated,” said Dr. Ramchandani.

In a similar incident, the body of a pregnant woman of Mayurbhanj district who died soon after delivering a boy was not allowed entry by villagers who suspected her to be have died of Coronavirus. Sunita Baske, a tribal woman from Mayurbhanj working as treasury officer was admitted to a nursing home in Soro block of Balasore after she underwent labour pains on Wednesday. Baske however died in the nursing home soon after giving birth to a baby boy.

However, when Ramchandra Hansdah, the husband of the deceased was planning to take the body back to Mayurbhanj, the villagers asked him not to come alleging that she has died of Coronavirus. “The villagers threatened me with social ostracisation if I came there with my wife’s body. As there was no other way, I cremated my wife’s body at Soro with the help of local lawyers’ association,” said Hansdah.

Lst week, an ambulance driver of Kalahandi district who had driven a Covid19 patient from the district to Cuttack was not allowed entry by people in his village. The ambulance was sanitised and then Sethi had worn the necessary personal protective equipments, yet the villagers were insistent of not allowing him entry. He is now staying ina government quarantine.