Clean toilets, first patients on isolation coaches praise Rlys -- barring mosquitoes

NEW DELHI: Clean toilets, colour-coded dustbins, comfortable beds, oxygen cylinders and all amenities one can expect in a top class hospital -- the first inmates of the train coaches converted into isolation wards have come away praising Indian Railways for providing a unique solution to care for suspected COVID-19 patients.

I am used to travelling by trains, but when I entered this one I was taken aback at the sight of the modifications. The stay was comfortable, except for the mosquitoes which were everywhere. The mosquitoes came from under the beds and they should spray repellent under the seats, said Krishnakant Sharma, contacted by PTI on phone from Mau in Uttar Pradesh.

He and five members of his family, including his wife Neetu and their 11-monthold daughter Vanshika, were among the first group of 59 suspected COVID-19 patients to be admitted to any of the 960 modified coaches deployed as Level 1 COVID care centres across five states.

In Uttar Pradesh alone 372 such coaches have been deployed. Krishnakant and his family were sent to one such isolation coach after they returned from Mumbai. Their samples were collected at a centre in Mau and they were asked to spend the night of June 20 in the isolation coach to await the results.

But all six members of the family tested negative and they were discharged the next day. Two other people were also discharged from the coach.

Equipped with hand-held showers, mosquito nets, biotoilets, power sockets, oxygen cylinders and more, the COVID-CARE coaches have it all to keep patients comfortable. But controlling the heat in the steel bodied non air-conditioned coaches has been a huge challenge, officials said.

Still, the occupants' fears of being roasted in the heat were unfounded as the night was pleasant, and industrial sized pedestal fans and hay on the roof kept the temperature down.

I don't know what we would have done if the temperature had soared. But I have to say that unlike the reputation of the toilets in trains, the bathroom as well as the toilets in these coaches were clean and it was very convenient to use, even for my elderly mother, said Krishnakant.

Nothing, however, could be done about the swarms of mosquitoes that came in through doors that were kept open, nullifying the effect of the netting that the Railways had fixed on the windows.