BENGALURU: Recent travelers to China who were put under observation for the coronavirus at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) here hit the panic button when they found that one of the staff members looking over them was Chinese, and that she had recently returned from her home country.
They and their attendants raised a hue and cry about her and a plethora of other problems they were encountering at the hospital.
For one thing, the 17-bed dormitory-like ward they were being quarantined in lacked an adequate number of toilets and they were unclean.
Following the inmates’ protest, the state health department authorized four private hospitals — Fortis, Apollo, Manipal and Narayana Hrudayalaya to lodge them in quarantine. However, a state surveillance officer will oversee them there, said RGICD director Dr. Nagaraja.
On the positive side, 11 of the 13 samples taken from the ward tested negative for coronavirus.
Blood samples are no longer having to be sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. The state government has authorized two laboratories in the city — one each at RGICD and another at Victoria Hospital. Results wil available on the same day, said Dr. Nagaraja.
And the Chinese staffer? The authorities ordered that she too be subjected to observation for coronavirus.
