Ongole: Quarantine centers inmates cry foul

Ongole: Hundreds of people put up in quarantine centres across Prakasam district are complaining of poor facilities and bad food. They allege that quantity and quality of arrangements are inadequate, hence, the government should allow them to go home for self-isolation. However, officials claim that they are providing the required facilities, but a few of inmates are making unnecessary fuss, only to convince the government to send home.

There are 27 quarantine centres in the district with a capacity of 751 rooms and 4,800 beds. In these centres, the government admitted a total of 1,280 people and disbursed 733 people, including the 471 on Sunday. Now there are 547 people in just 10 quarantine centres in the district. The people in the quarantine centre at Chirala Engineering College said that the breakfast provided by the authorities on Saturday contained insects and shared the videos to the officials. Some others complained that stale food is supplied for dinner.

They demanded the suppliers to provide eatable food or allow them to get food from home. On the other hand, the people being quarantined in the IIIT Ongole claim that the old aged people suffering from hypertension and diabetes and women and children there are suffering a lot.

The Mufti for the Prakasam district, Zubair Ahmed, who is also in the same quarantine centre, told The Hans India that the authorities had given a room to 8 to 10 people with men, women, and children sharing it. He observed that the women are wearing burkha round-the-clock as per their tradition in front of other men there, and it is a great inconvenience for them.

He complained that the old aged people and diabetics, including the men and women, have to urinate every one hour or so, but going to the toilets at the distance is taking them time and is inconvenient to them. He appreciated the food being supplied in their quarantine centre, but the mothers are unable to pacify the children who used to eat different varieties of snacks at various times. He requested the authorities to consider shifting the old aged and women along with the children to home quarantine.

Macharla Mohan Rao from Chirala and founder president of Rashtra Chenetha Jana Samakhya wrote a letter to the Chief Minister explaining about the situations at the quarantine centre and requested him to provide different sections for family members of positive cases and others and provide masks and sanitizers to each of them.

He advised that the government to supply nutritious food to the people in quarantine centres to boost their immunity and order the concerned people to maintain hygiene and sanitation. He appealed the Chief Minister to allow the people who are not family members of the positive cases and got a negative report to be quarantined at home.

RIMS superintendent Dr Diguvinti Sriramulu said that all the people in the quarantine centres were tested negative for the Covid-19. He said that they are keeping those tested negative too in quarantine to make sure the doctors were ready if any of them develop symptoms in the meantime. He said that they are following the protocol set by the Union government and the ground level officers cannot make changes in it.