Punjab: All Nawanshahr patients back home after coronavirus battle

IP Singh | TNN | Apr 23, 2020, 14:20 IST

A patient gets a food hamper on being discharged from hospital

NAWANSHAHR: Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar or Nawanshahr district, the first district in the state to witness a Covid-19 death -- Baldev Singh, 70, of Pathlawa village died over a month back-- is now ‘Corona-free’. The district has seen no case since the last patient was taken to the Civil Hospital isolation centre on March 26 and even Baldev ’s 16 year-old grandson has been cured and sent home.
Nawanshahr is just two days away from being declared green zone if now new cases crop up.
While there have been two casualties in the chain originating from Baldev Singh, the positive aspect is that 26 patients in the district have recovered and the virus spread has been contained. All the contacts were traced aggressively and the chain was broken by putting them in quarantine.
Apart from 14 members of Baldev Singh’s family -- seven adults and seven children -- 13 others had also tested positive, including his two co-travellers. One of his contacts and friend Harbhajan Singh of Moranwali village of Hoshiarpur district died at Government Medical College, Amritsar. Barring two contacts of Harbhajan Singh who are admitted in Hoshiarpur, the remaining 24 have returned home after being cured.
A patient gets a food hamper on being discharged from hospital
‘Sant Gurbachan’s positive attitude helped others’
There were 17 patients from Pathlawa village alone and one from nearby Jhikka. and they posed a challenge: the oldest of them, Sant Gurbachan Singh was 78, Pritam Kaur had hypertension and cardiac issues, her son and village sarpanch Harpal Singh, 49, had diabetes, while Baldev’s grandson was barely 2 years old.
“All of them were asymptomatic and didn’t present major problems. After getting their medical histories we categorised the patients and these four were a challenge for us. I did not give them any unnecessary medicine and focused on monitoring their condition. The biggest issue was to dispel fear of infection and to make them stay in Chardi Kala (high spirits) and for that we regularly counselled them,” said doctors.Every evening, our group of doctors and paramedics would sit and discuss each patient. Then we strategised how to address their issues, especially psychological, and how to increase their comfort level,” said Dr Gurpal Kataria, medicine specialist at Civil Hospital Nawanshahr. In fact he and microbiologist Dr Rupinder Singh took the sample of Baldev Singh after his death at Civil Hospital Banga and of other patients with their team of paramedics. Both of them have been at the Covid frontline from March 18. “We can’t explain in words how much happy we are that all patients who came to us have recovered fully, that is our biggest reward,” said the two doctors. Both doctors said that Sant Gurbachan Singh, despite his age, presented minimal problems, medical or psychological. “He would keep reciting Gurbani and his positive attitude rubbed off on others,” they said.
Sant Gurbachan Singh concurred with them: “I don’t think I ever had a problem as I did not feel sick or down throughout.”
Nawanshahr deputy Commissioner Vinay Bublani said, they were not going to lower their guard after fighting the big battle. “We are starting the second round of screening in the entire district. Teams will go door to door and paste stickers with the contact numbers,” he added.