Visakhapatnam: Lack of safety measures forces volunteers to skip door-to-door survey

Visakhapatnam: Safety measures seem to be a far cry for the Ward and Village Volunteers as they struggle to handle multiple tasks as a part of the containment measures taken by the district administration to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

From the identification of the coronavirus victims to tracing foreign returnees and their contacts, distribution of commodities to the midday meal beneficiaries to distribution of pensions, a slew of tasks has been entrusted upon them ever since the coronavirus outbreak began.

But what turns out to be a major concern is that they continue conducting door-to-door survey without any protective gear. Ironically, many of them have to shell out from their own pockets even to get a mask.

With rising number of Covid-19 positive cases, their exposure to risk factor has also been equally increased. One of their primary tasks include collecting the data of the foreign returnees and information about those suffering from coronavirus symptoms and should be passed to the health officials so that they will be shifted to the quarantine centres.

In addition to the survey, volunteers should also ensure government schemes reach out to the beneficiaries. In the process, each volunteer should take care of 50 houses in his or her respective area.

A survey was done on identifying the persons with the infection symptoms along with the support of health worker and Asha workers. Many volunteers expressed concern over dealing with the positive cases directly while conducting such door-to-door survey. "There is no precautionary mechanism in place while we are on the field. Either we buy the masks or cover ourselves with hankies. This will certainly pose a greater risk to us, especially when seeking the details of an infected person," rues a volunteer. Lack of protective gear has dissuaded several volunteers from conducting door-to-door survey and involve in collecting the data through phone calls. As a result, they failed in getting accurate information about the foreign returnees and the ones with virus symptoms. Three more positive cases from the same family recorded in Revidi village, Bheemunipatnam constituency is an example of the ineffective survey held.

At present, volunteers are currently working on distribution of pensions as well. With so many tasks to complete, volunteers continue to work from dawn to dusk without any break. What turns out to be a worrisome factor is that they have not received their salaries in Visakhapatnam district for the past three months. There are approximately 11, 800 volunteers working in the district. "More than our salaries, the risk of getting infected worries us a lot. Parents are forcing us to quit our work as they consider our life precious. We are finding it seriously tough to continue the survey without following any safety protocol," says a volunteer on condition of anonymity.

The government is taking containment measures for COVID-19 based on the reports collected from the health workers and an army volunteers. But with lack of safety mechanism in place, many of them intend to give a skip to the most crucial drive that the district administration has taken up.