Frontline personnel engaged in fighting COVID-19 during the lockdown including those in Padarayanapura in Bengaluru, have got a morale boost with the personal testimony of a recovered male patient in Mangaluru.
A 138-second video Saleem Hegde returning home at Thokkottu, off Mangaluru, after his discharge and his emotional message as to how healthcare workers cured his ailment at a great personal sacrifice was posted on social media.
A tweet by Mangaluru City Police Commissioner P.S. Harsha with the discharged patient’s video said, “Just reproducing the experience of a cured COVID19 patient. Please listen to the firsthand account about the care entire team of police officers, doctors, nurses and paramedics have given to bring any victim out of it. Join hands with government @DgpKarnataka @CPBlr @DHFWKA.”
Retweeting this, Director General and Inspector General of Police Praveen Sood said, “Police/BBMP/ health officials are facilitating contacts of COVID patients to move to institutional quarantine...for their own well-being...anyone obstructing them should first listen to this.”
“It is saner voices of people such as the discharged patient that should prevail,” said Dr. Harsha. He wondered when the entire state machinery was engaged in tackling the pandemic without any fear or favour in attending to anyone symptomatic or treating the positive, why should people for whom the Corona warriors were trying to protect, should assault them.
Mr. Hegde, associated with Tablighi Jamat had attended the event at Nizamuddin in Delhi and resisted administration’s initial attempts to treat him thinking he was being arrested, sources said. After a couple of rounds of counselling, he was convinced and was allowed to feel at home during the treatment.
He narrated in the video the absolute care taken at the Government District Wenlock Hospital; how well police personnel treated him and the facilities at the hospital. “When they do so much to lift us from hell, everyone should make attempts to be safe,” Mr. Hegde said.