Delhi: Covid-19 patient forced to isolate at home after hospitals refuse admission for over 24 hours

A 63-year-old cancer patient in Delhi had to wait for more than 24 hours to get hospitalised and quarantined even after he was found to be Covid-19 positive.

What’s worse is that while he was sent back home by a private hospital after his Covid-19 diagnosis, Delhi government hospitals showed little interest in admitting him despite repeated calls to multiple helpline numbers for more than 24 hours. The patient stayed at his home without any preventive measures risking infection to family members and neighbours.

Puspa Boruah, who hails from Assam has been undergoing treatment for cancer in Delhi’s Apollo Hospital, where he was found to be Covid-19 positive on April 27 at around 6 pm. The hospital authorities, instead of admitting him, asked him to go home. Since then, Boruah and his families tried to contact different helpline numbers provided by Delhi government but got no response.

Boruah has been living in a rented house in Delhi’s Govindpuri area along with his wife and daughter.

“It has been more than 24 hours and we have got no response. As responsible citizens, we are locked up inside the home, but looking at the Delhi government’s response I dread to imagine how an asymptomatic young man would behave in such a situation. Apollo Hospital took no precaution and casually asked my father to go back home on his own,” says Pallavi, Boruah’s daughter.

A family friend of Boruah even contacted Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia at around 5 pm on April 28. Assam’s health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also got in touch with Sisodia seeking his intervention.

After that, a Delhi government official called Boruah’s daughter over phone and asked her to admit the patient at RML Hospital. The official, however, said he would not be able to send an ambulance. “Where will we get a vehicle to reach the hospital? Who will take us? We cannot lie to a taxi driver since my father is a Covid-19 patient,” says Pallavi.

Later, another officer called Pallavi and told her that her father would be sent to a quarantine centre tomorrow. When contacted by India Today, an official of Delhi government's health department said he was unaware of any such patient. “We will admit him at LNJP hospital. We are trying to get in touch with the family,” he said.

The Apollo Hospital authorities said that the patient was offered a bed at the hospital in the afternoon by the Delhi government's nodal officer but the family declined the offer because they could not afford the expense of treatment at a private hospital. The nodal officer is responsible for allocating beds to all Covid-19 patients in government and private hospitals.

The patient has finally been taken to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital.