It was 11pm on March 21, on the eve of the Janata Curfew, and Dr Daksha Shah was in her car, busy signing files and answering calls from doctors, patients and ambulance services while heading home from work. “It is not just me but the entire team that is working like crazy to put a stop to the spread of coronavirus,” she says.
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On March 24, Shah announced a “good news”—eight Covid-19 patients were being discharged from Kasturba hospital after their two consecutive samples came out negative. But not all news has been good. Recently, after a patient’s friend put up photographs on social media showing cats roaming inside the hospital’s isolation ward and bloodstains on a wash basin, Shah said that she would have the housekeeping staff keep the wards clean. But she also requested those quarantined to keep the ward clean.
“People need to take the responsibility of staying safe, too. We are working overtime to make sure everyone else is safe,” says Shah. “We are aggressively and tirelessly tracking people down. But in the end, people have to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. The virus is in the community and you would be lucky if you do not get it.”