In quarantine, ward boy recalls pain of losing his only child

LUCKNOW:Manish Kumar Tyagi, a ward boy at a government hospital treating Covid-19 patients in Lucknow, is still coming to terms with the harsh reality that he couldn’t even hug his three-yearold son, his only child, before he was lowered into his final resting place.

After 14 days of work, Manish, like the rest of the staff at Lucknow’s Lokbandhu Hospital, where coronavirus patients are being treated, was quarantined in a nearby hotel.

This is a mandatory drill for all hospital staff treating Covid-19 patients.

“It was around 9pm that my wife called up to say that our son was sick. He was vomiting and apparently down with some gastric infection. I could do little, but the family with the help of a neighbour, who drives a taxi, took the child to the nearest hospital in Chinhat. The hospital refused to admit my child after which the family was informed about another hospital in Alambagh. That hospital too refused to admit my son,” Manish said.

“Thereafter, my wife rushed him to King George’s Medical University (KGMU). By this time, I had called up my seniors in the hospital, who had dialled KGMU where the doctors immediately attended to him but clearly a lot of time had been lost by then,” he recalled.

“My son tested negative for the coronavirus too. This (fear of infection) was perhaps the reason why those private hospitals, where my son was first rushed to, refused to attend to him. How can one deny treatment to a child in an emergency?” he asked.

“Main ladke ko galey bhi nahi laga paya (I couldn’t even embrace my dear son as I was quarantined). With special permission, I did go to KGMU in an ambulance after wearing complete personal protective equipment (PPE) kit. Yet, I didn’t go near my family or for that near anyone. I could only watch my son from a distance as he left us,” he said. In the morning, the child was buried in the family’s village.

“I am still unable to get over the fact that he might have been alive if the private hospitals had attended to him,” he said.

Manish hasn’t resumed his duties. “My wife continues to sob uncontrollably. I put duty over my family responsibilities first. I had lost my father sometime back and now this. Don’t know how life will shape up now,” he said.

The hospital authorities are in regular touch with the ward boy who was employed on a contractual basis four years back.

He was on Covid duty since February.