Family members of Covid-19 patients in Rajasthan’s Kota are hiring ‘caretakers’ for attending to their hospitalised patients in Kota owing to the fear of catching Covid-19 or lack of enough family members who can look after the patients, HT has learnt.
Sharda (40) brought her Covid-19 positive husband from native district Sawai Madhopur to neighbouring district Kota for treatment of Covid-19 a week ago. She hired a man on daily wages in Kota to help her take care of her husband at the Covid-19 dedicated hospital in Kota a few days ago. Sharda has no one else in her family other than her husband and kids. She is now looking to hire another caretaker as the one hired earlier left for better-paying work in the city.
“I need a male caretaker to help me as there is no one to massage my ailing husband’s hands and legs which pain due to Covid-19 infection,” Sharda said.
“Earlier, I hired a male caretaker for ₹700 per day but now I am again in search of an attendant,” she said. “I demand from the hospital administration to provide us with caretakers for looking after my Covid positive husband,” she added.
Family members of Covid-19 patients keep these ‘hired’ caretakers in the wards of the dedicated Covid-19 hospitals by making them pose as family members and attendants of the patients.
Since there has been a lockdown in the state from the last three weeks, many daily wagers lost their jobs and are forced to work as caretakers at hospitals for Covid-19 patients while putting their own lives at risk.
These caretakers are reported to be taking per day wages of ₹700 to ₹1,000 for attending to the Covid-19 patients.
One such hired caretaker is fifty-five-year-old Ved Prakash. “Due to the lockdown, I had no work as markets and shops were closed and when somebody asked me to work as a caretaker at the Covid hospital on daily wages I came here and started serving Covid patients,” Prakash said.
“We are attending to Covid-19 patients in just face masks and gloves as neither the family members of the patients nor the hospital administration has provided PPE kits,” he alleged.
Another caretaker told HT that family members of a Covid-19 patient gave him ₹700 per day for staying overnight in the Covid-19 ward with their hospitalised patient as the family was getting tired of looking after their patient the entire day.
As per the people privy to the developments, there are over half a dozen or more people who are working as hired caretakers in the hospital. The reason for hiring such caretakers is either fear among family members of contracting the virus or lack of enough attendants to look after the patient.
Superintendent of the Covid-19 dedicated government hospital in Kota, Dr Chandrashekhar Sushil, admitted the presence of hired caretakers in the hospital. “Nearly 10 days ago, hospital authorities caught a couple of people who were hired as caretakers for Covid-19 patients. They said that there were 4-5 women caretakers as well,” he said.
“We are checking such hired caretakers but if the family members give us an undertaking that they have authorised some caretaker to look after their covid patient, we will allow them”.
