Families hiring caretakers to attend to hospitalised Covid patients in Kota
Family members are hiring caretakers to attend Covid-19 patients in hospitals either due to the fear of catching the infection or due to lack of sufficient family members.
“I need a male caretaker to give massage on my ailing husband’s hands and legs, which pain due to Covid-19 infection,” says Sharda (40), who brought her husband for the treatment to Kota from her native district Sawai Madhopur a week ago.
She had hired a man on daily wage to help her take care of her husband in the Covid-19 dedicated hospital of Kota a few days ago, as there are only kids and no male family member in the family.
Sharda is now looking to hire a new caretaker as the caretaker she had hired left for some higher paid work in the city.
“Earlier, I had hired a male caretaker for ₹700 per day, but now I am again in search of an attendant,” she says.
There are several other family members like Sharda, who have hired caretakers for patients in Covid wards of the dedicated Covid-19 hospitals in the guise of family members and attendants.
Since there has been a lockdown in the state for last three weeks, many daily wagers have lost their jobs, so they are also forced to work as caretakers in the Covid hospitals while putting their lives at risk.these caretakers are reportedly being paid 700 to Rs 1,000 per day wages for attending the Covid-19 patients.
“Due to lockdown I had no work as the entire market and shops were closed and when somebody asked me to work as caretaker in the Covid hospital on daily wages I came here and serving Covid patients,” says Ved Prakash, 55.
“I am attending Covid-19 patients wearing face mask and gloves,” he adds.
Neither the family members of patients nor the hospital administration has provided PPE kits to such caretakers.
Another male caretaker on condition of anonymity says, “Family members of a patient gave him Rs 700 per day for staying overnight as a reliever in the Covid-19 ward with their hospitalised patient since the family members also get tired looking after their patient the whole day.”
Sources say there were more than half-a-dozen persons who worked as hired caretakers in the hospital and the reason for hiring them was either fear among the family members of catching the infection or lack of sufficient attendants to look after the Covid patients in the hospital.
Superintendent of the Covid-19 dedicated government hospital in Kota, Dr Chandrashekhar Sushil admits the presence of hired caretakers in the hospital.
“Nearly 10 days ago, hospital authorities had caught a couple of persons who were hired as caretakers. They said there were 4-5 women caretakers also,” he says.
“Although, we are checking such hired caretakers, but if the family members will give us in writing that they have authorised so and so person as caretaker to look after their Covid patient, we will allow them,” he adds.
There were also reports of people hiring caretakers for Covid patients in other parts of the state. KOTA: