Kin of COVID-19 patients refuse to take them home after recovery

Family members or relatives of over 50 people who have recovered from COVID-19 are not willing to take their loved ones home fearing getting infected, forcing the government to keep them in state-run facilities, a senior official said on Monday.

According to Dr Prabhakar Reddy, nodal officer for COVID-19 at Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad, about 50 such people are being kept at Nature Cure Hospital as their kin did not come forward to take them home.

"We had 60 such cases where the relatives or family members refused to take the recovered people home fearing that they and their children would also get infected. We are trying to convince them. As of now 50 such people, both men and women, are being kept at the Nature Cure Hospital," Dr Reddy told PTI.

Some of the recovered patients are aged people, including a 93-year old woman and are still in Gandhi Hospital while the rest have been sent to different facilities.

"We cannot use police force on the kin and ask them to take them back home. We are counselling them saying there is no harm due to the recovered persons. Some three or four people were taken home after we convinced them," he added.

The state-run Gandhi Hospital which was declared a COVID-19 treatment facility is currently treating 723 patients, out of which over 350 are on oxygen supply.

According to him, the regular mortuary at Gandhi Hospital can accommodate 65 to 70 bodies.

The hospital has set up an exclusive morgue for COVID-19 deaths with a capacity of about 20 bodies.

Prabhakar Rao said separate teams have been set up to handle the special morgue as per COVID-19 protocols.

As on Sunday night, Telangana has 14,419 COVID-19 positive cases and 5,172 people have been discharged so far, while 9,000 were under treatment, a state government bulletin said.