Delhi sets up quarantine centres for unattended, rescued children in city

The Delhi government’s department of women and child development (WCD) has set up two quarantine centres, especially for children who are either found unattended or rescued by NGOS or police, before sending them to designated child care institutions (CCIS) or children homes.

The centres are also catering to children, aged between six and 18 years, whose entire family are down with Covid-19 or are have been hospitalised. The quarantine centre for girls has been set up in a child care home run by an NGO, Butterflies, in

NEW DELHI:

south-west Delhi’s village Jaunapur. For boys, the quarantine centre has been set up at the government-operated children home in Lajpat Nagar. Both the quarantine centres became functional this week.

Delhi minister for women and child development Rajendra Pal Gautam said the department decided to set up such centres to prevent the spread of Covid-19 among children residing in children’s homes or CCIS across the Capital. “Normally, children found unattended or rescued are directly sent to child care institutions or children’s homes after producing them before district child welfare committees. In the current circumstances, we cannot let new admissions mingle with the children who are already there in the CCIS. Therefore, it was decided to set up these two quarantine centres for children aged between six and 18 years,” he said.

The children brought to the quarantine centres will be isolated here for 14 days, following which the department willl conducts their Covid-19 test before transferring them to children’s homes or CCIS. There are 101 children’s homes in Delhi.

The two centres are providing all the basic facilities to these children, as any other CCI, and also have a full-time nurse to monitor them. They also have television and indoor games facilities for the residents. The WCD has also roped in doctors to regularly check the children for any symptoms.

Currently, there are 11 boys and 13 girls living in the quarantine centres. Yogesh Mishra, in-charge at the Lajpat Nagar centre, said 10 of the boys were rescued by childline workers from railway stations and busstands. “Any new child has to undergo an RT-PCR test. We keep them in a separate room till the report comes. In case any child is found Covid positive, he or she is sent to district Covid care facilities. If the report returns negative, they live with other children staying at the facility,” he said.