Uttarakhand Congress vice-president Suryakant Dhasmana was quarantined at home on Tuesday, a day after he met people suspected to have been infected with the novel coronavirus at a government hospital in the state capital of Dehradun.
AK Srivastava, the district magistrate of Dehradun, said that according to the report from the Government Doon Medical College Hospital, the senior leader has been asked to stay in isolation at home for the mandatory 14 days.
“I ordered Suryakant Dhasmana to stay in isolation at his home for 14 days and not interact with anyone while monitoring his symptoms based on the report given by the hospital that he had interacted with suspected patients of coronavirus infection. His condition will be closely monitored,” said Srivastava.
Suryakant Dhasmana and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s legislator from Dehradun’s Rajpur assembly segment, Khajan Dass, went near the isolation ward set up in Government Doon Medical College Hospital on Monday, “to check the arrangements in the hospital to deal with coronavirus outbreak.”
Dass, who is also the BJP’s state unit vice-president, has not been quarantined.
“The hospital report does not state that the BJP leader Khajan Dass went into the area which was prohibited. So he has not been put on quarantine as of now,” the district magistrate said when asked why the BJP leader was not put in isolation as well.
Dhasmana, on his part, said he quarantined himself after he received calls from both the chief medical officer (CMO) of Dehradun and deputy CMO on Monday night.
“After learning about the incident, the district magistrate requested me to quarantine myself as I went to the wards where suspected patients of coronavirus were staying,” said Dhasmana.
“Taking precaution I will stay at home for 14 days in a separate room and not meet anyone. I will also keep the doctors updated about my health conditions,” he added.
Dhasmana said he did not go to the prohibited area of the isolation ward and had only met the suspected patients.
“I was told that the isolation ward is on the other floor and not where I went. I took all the required precautions like wearing a double mask, sanitising my hands while talking to the two students. I understand that it was not safe, but I took all the precautions,” the senior leader said.
When asked why he went to the hospital despite the health risk, Dass said, “I had learnt that people were not getting masks so I went to check that. I spoke to the chief medical superintendent to ask about the number of masks required and learnt that around 2000 masks had been already distributed and 4000 were yet to be distributed.”
Dhasmana pointed out that the hospital comes under his assembly constituency so he went to check the arrangements. He said he also spoke to the suspected patients and enquired about their health conditions while wearing a mask.
To prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading, all government and private hospitals in the state have stopped allowing visitors to patients. Only one member of a family will be allowed to be with patients, the government said.
The state government has also closed all tiger reserves, zoos, national parks and sanctuaries in the state to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
So far, 32 samples from the state have been sent for testing with one reporting positive, 22 negative and results of nine awaited.
