The Telangana High Court on Wednesday will hear about the conditions at shelter homes — set up by the State government following lockdown due to COVID-19 — to accommodate migrant labourers, beggars, homeless people and others.
Lawyer Vasudha Nagaraj had written a letter to High Court Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan stating that some shelter homes had the potential to spread coronavirus as the authorities clubbed persons suffering from HIV, tuberculosis and ‘possibly COVID-19’ in the same without any policy of isolation. The HC took up the letter as PIL plea.
Stating that she had visited some of the shelter homes, the lawyer said inmates of the homes included women discharged after delivery from hospitals carrying newborn babies and men discharged after critical surgeries. Their attendants too were there.
A woman who had recently delivered a baby and another woman who had undergone orthopaedic surgery could not sit on the floor. ‘….they were sitting in the chairs throughout the night as they could not lie on the floor..’ the lawyer said in the letter quoting the staff manning the shelter homes. Same was the condition of men who underwent surgeries. In the backdrop of rising cases of coronavirus, the government picked up migrant labourers, homeless people, beggars, abandoned children from different localities, roadside, bus and railway stations and other public places, according to her.
Overnight, stadiums, marriage halls and other open public places were converted into shelter homes. In one home, a person fell ill. Despite repeated requests from the staff to shift him to a hospital, the ambulance service personnel were not responding, the lawyer said. While there is a sharp rise in coronavirus positive cases every day, no health screening of persons admitted in the homes was taken up till now. There were no doctors to examine if any of them was ill. Lack of such screening and complete absence of medical facilities were making inmates of the shelter home easily vulnerable to COVID-19, the lawyer contended.
One person from each of the shelter homes at Lalapet, Malkajgiri and West Marredpally died. However, the staff of these homes were not informed reasons behind the deaths. Citing lack of space as a reason, authorities crammed women, children and mentally challenged persons in the same hall in one home, the lawyer said.