A group of Non Resident Keralites (NoRKs) who reached the city on Thursday staged a protest near the Kozhikode mofussil bus stand alleging that they were not given proper quarantine facilities. The group, including three women, who reached the Kozhikode international airport by a Jazeera flight at 5 a.m. from Kuwait claimed that they were forced to stay back near the bus stand for over four hours.
A woman passenger said they had been assured of all support by Health Department officials prior to their departure from Kuwait. However, even food was not provided upon their arrival, she complained.
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An recent order by the district administration citing its plan to implement decentralised quarantine facilities in the returnees’ home towns had caused much confusion, they claimed. NoRK leaders from the city have objected to the administration’s plan to close down about 40 institutional quarantine centres in Kozhikode district.
The officials’ reasoning that NoRKs did not opt for government-supported quarantine centres was not true, they argued.
The leaders expressed doubts about the efficacy of decentralised quarantine facilities, implemented with the support of local bodies. Those unable to go in home quarantine due to personal or financial constraints should be offered institutional quarantine by the district administration in the city itself, they said.
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‘No’ to paid facilities
Some of the stranded NoRKs also flayed the proposal to give them paid quarantine facilities in the city as opted by some who had returned earlier. The idea was rejected by many since it would further burden them financially.
They said institutional quarantine facilities in the city should be continued to help the needy. Sending them to remote villages without proper facilities was not a solution, they added.