COVID-19 quarantine centres brace storms of complaints

All of the 1463 stranded returnees from Chennai who arrived Dimapur on May 22, were despatched to various quarantine centres at Dimapur and Kohima.

Social media platforms are replete with posts that severely criticise the government, the department and frontline workers besides mounting attacks on poor facilities and poor quality of food.

What is common is shortages of doctors and nursing staff which would cause huge problems once more returnees are accommodated. Incidents of some inmates on complaint-mode and violating rules has also seen the thaw in relationship between medical team and police personnel in the quarantines.

In a sharp contradiction to the series of posts on social media platforms, inmates at Meriema quarantine centre have dismissed all such stories.

Speaking to Nagaland Post, a returnee from Chennai kept at Meriema quarantine centre said there was no complaint from anyone regarding food. Members of various churches and organisations were taking turns to provide good food to the inmates and all of them were grateful.  “I saw many stories on social media, but most of them are fake. We complained on the first day because the food was served late as we were all hungry after a long journey. But the food got better after that day,” he claimed. 

He admitted that the only disappointment was that two persons have to share a room. “Though we have separate beds, we share the same bathroom. But there is nothing to sanitise it. Yes, they had asked us to carry our own hand sanitisers. Though I have sanitiser, some returnees did not have when they came.” He praised around 10 or 20 nurses doing round the clock duty of looking after more than a hundred inmates. 

Asked about some inmates escaping and no enforcement of social distancing as posted on social media, the inmate maintained all of them were fake news. Instead, he said all were locked from outside and no one has ran away adding, “at least not from this centre”. 

Another inmate said she was so happy to be back home and had no complaint about food. She claimed that all other inmates taken good care of and were maintain social distancing at all times.  She said the rooms in the quarantine were habitable and provided with blankets, bedsheets and other requirements. 

Another inmate also said that all healthcare workers were doing their level best to make them feel at home and always available when needed.

In Dimapur, two teams are regularly checking the quality, quantity and hygiene of meals prepared. Every day, food is prepared for around 2500 people including people in quarantine, police personnel, medical personnel and others engaged in COVID-19 duty.

 According to DIPR, the fooding committee constituted by the Empowered Group have been shouldering a huge task since day one supplying packaged meals to all institutional quarantine centres and transit camp at Agri Expo, Dimapur district.

Nurses panic: Meanwhile, a nurse, who had been quarantined, after one was tested positive for COVID-19 revealed that all  nurses panicked. She said all nurses in her group were under quarantine and being tested for COVID-19.  

Another nurse said she and her colleagues were asked to report for duty after their quarantine period of 14 days was over. They then wrote to the authority requesting to be given time for rest and to self-quarantine   but so far there was no response.  She said if the authority declined then all of them(nurses) would resign. 

She regretted that though the nurses were trying their best to meet the need of the inmates, they were only facing criticisms all the time. 

She also admitted that there was shortage of manpower as more doctors and nurses were   required when more returnees will be accommodated.