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Life at a quarantine centre: Counting days, longing to meet kin & praying for a –ve report
Regular tests are done at the centre and those who are found positive are shifted to another facility. The others are kept here and are allowed to return home once their three consecutive tests come negative over 14 days.
The day begins early in this Covid-19 quarantine centre in Bakshi Ka Talab area here. The inmates get up at 5 am with a call of the security guard, make a mental note of the number of days they have spent in the quarantine centre and get ready for the long, lonely, hot day ahead.
The facility, in the boys’ hostel of a private medical college, houses locals and migrants with Covid-19 symptoms. The number of inmates keeps fluctuating. On Thursday there were 22 inmates (16 men and 6 women), two days ago there were 65 and close to 150 were kept here when the centre started in April.
“Regular tests are done at the centre and those who are found positive are shifted to another facility. The others are kept here and are allowed to return home once their three consecutive tests come negative over 14 days,” said KK Shahi, a government pharmacist at the centre on the morning shift.
The pharmacist and two nursing attendants, along with two cleaners stay at the facility. A doctor who is also posted there was “about to reach”, Shahi said when the HT team visited the facility at around 8 am.
A black metal gate leads to the compund of the hostel where the Covid-19 patients are kept. The gate is kept locked to prevent inmates from going out. Two CCTV cameras are placed above the gate. Ghanshyam, an elderly guard, sounded a word of caution as he unlocked the gate. “Dur se baat kariyega, kaun jane corona kaise dhar le (Talk from a distance, who know how one catches corona).
Inside, the inmates begin coming out of their room to a small grassy patch in the centre, their faces covered with masks, eyes searching.
“I was tested negative and have been here for the past 10 days. I pray to God daily for another negative report so that I may return home in the next four days,” said an 18-year-old who was brought to the centre from Sadar area of Lucknow. Sadar is one of the red zones in the city with several positive Covid 19 cases.
The inmates said that they got ample food three times a day. They get a light meal of pulses, vegetables, chapati and rice. The food is handed out at the gate and they eat it in their rooms. Every room houses two or three inmates. They share a common toilet which is not cleaned regularly, complain some of the inmates.
A 42-year-old woman inmate said that she feared getting infected due to dirty washroom. “The washroom is cleaned only once every day, that too not properly. There is a fear of catching infection because of this,” she said.
Apart from meal times, the gate is opened when new inmates are brought or those with positive reports are taken out to be sent elsewhere. The inmates spend most of the day in their rooms due to the fear of infection from new inmates.
“We stay away from the new inmates and hope that they are not positive. It is scary when 10 or 12 new inmates are brought in a single day,” said another 45- year-old man who is quarantined with his wife and three daughters.
Other inmates, specially migrants who have their families at different places, try to stay in touch over phone.
