Quarantine facilities dirty
Many lodged in these places were vocal about poor hygiene
The state government’s decision to open quarantine facilities at state and Centrally-owned hostels and other facilities to house international air passengers for the mandatory 14-day quarantine has resulted in revealing the state of disrepair of such establishments.
Though just on Wednesday, health minister Etala Rajendar had appealed to quarantined individuals to ‘adjust’ to the conditions as these facilities were identified in a hurry, many who have been lodged at different places have been quite vocal about the state of the rooms, the service being provided by the government and the near lack of basic attention to the needs of those who have been quarantined.
“This is no quarantine. There are two to three persons in each room. Some of the rooms have no beds so there are four to five in those. The beds are dirty, the linen is dirty, there are bed bugs, cockroaches and mosquitoes plaguing the rooms,” one of the individuals quarantined at the Institute of Cooperative Management in Rajendranagar told Deccan Chronicle on
Thursday.
Among the complaints that DC received were unclean toilets at some of these facilities, defunct toilet flushes, lack of running water, inadequate supply of drinking water.
No one with any level of responsibility has visited us since yesterday when we were brought here, the person said. “Many of us have been begging to be allowed to go home and that we will observe quarantine guidelines at our homes but there is no one to listen to us,” the newlyarrived passenger said.
Many others complained about how a “politically connected” young woman was allowed to leave the facility in a private car. This was really upsetting how the well-connected people are get preferential treatment, one person said.
There were also complaints about how the food, when delivered, is not accompanied by plates or spoons.
A parent of a young person who was among those taken to a quarantine facility was livid at the way people were bundled into RTC buses at the airport after undergoing health screening on Wednesday.
“The RTC bosses were there and I pointed out at how dirty the buses were. I was told to ‘adjust’ and since these were last minute orders from the government they received, they pressed into service whatever buses they could. Many people suffered from scratches and scrapes because the buses were in a very bad condition,” he said.