The JNU Teachers’ Association on Wednesday reiterated its demand for setting up COVID care facilities on campus by converting the existing guest houses into isolation centres for residents that would include providing oxygen support. The teachers said that IIT-Delhi had set up such a facility and was producing its own oxygen.
The teachers said the students who test positive on the JNU campus are taken to an isolation centre in Sultanpuri which does not have proper facilities. “JNUTA has received pictures sent by students of dirty toilets, open garbage cans, unchanged sheets and bedding that show how unhygienic and unsafe the facilities are. Starting yesterday [Tuesday], JNUTA has been providing packets of fruits and dry food to our students housed there. If only such isolation facilities had been constructed in JNU, in guest houses or makeshift arrangements in the stadium, not just students but other residents would have been spared the trouble of living in such unhygienic places outside the campus,” the teachers said.
Disinterested V-C
The teachers also alleged that the Vice-Chancellor has shown no interest in this. JNUTA had conveyed to the administration about an offer by an overseas university that wished to donate 10 oxygen concentrators to JNU.
The JNU administration had stated that with the small health centre available in the university and with only a few doctors and part-time specialists meant for medical advice to normal people, the university is not equipped to handle COVID-19 related cases. Therefore, a COVID-19 Response Team (CRT) was mobilised to work round the clock in establishing contact with the hospitals for beds, doctors for medical advice on telephone or online, and arranging food for those who are in no position to prepare food at their houses.
At hostels, the administration said a few rooms with dedicated washrooms were provided as quasi-isolation corners, where the students with mild symptoms are shifted until their COVID-19 testing is done. The administration had added that this system had been working well because the occupancy in the hostels is much less than it was in normal times.
