Noida: Six domestic staff, 10-year-old kept in room for 7 hrs after they test positive

NOIDA: Seven people, including six domestic staffers and the 10-year-old son of one of them, allegedly had to undergo a seven-hour ordeal when they were isolated in a room of a housing society in Noida without any food and water after they tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday.
All of them had undergone rapid antigen tests at a camp organised at Grand Omaxe in Sector 93. Residents said that tests were carried out on 235 people and after the seven tested positive, they were asked to isolate themselves in a room in the basement.
Swati Agrawal, vice-president of Grand Omaxe apartment owners’ association, said that they were asked to wait there until an ambulance arrived to take them to the nearest hospital.
“The camp ended around 1pm after which they were isolated in that room and asked not to come out. They wanted to go home and get food, water and phone chargers, but were not allowed to step out. Officials said it wouldn’t be right if they mingled with others,” she said.
When the ambulance didn’t arrive even after evening, they complained to their employers and one of them narrated the incident on Twitter.
Tagging district magistrate Suhas LY and CM Yogi Adityanath, Dushyant, a journalist, tweeted on Sunday, “The domestic worker at my house, her husband and her child have tested positive. They along with a few other housekeeping staff were made to sit in an empty room without food or water. They were told that an ambulance will take them but they have been waiting for over five hours now and the ambulance is yet to come.”
He questioned why they were being treated like that.
Agrawal added that the ambulance finally arrived after they contacted the city magistrate. “We spoke to the tehsildar appointed for the camp and asked him to arrange an ambulance. However, when it could not be done, we had to call up the city magistrate who told someone else for the ambulance. It finally arrived around 8pm,” she said.
The patients were finally taken to the L-1 Covid hospital in Sector 125 after they picked up their clothes and essentials from their homes.
When contacted, tehsildar Vinay Pratap Singh Bhadauria, supervisor of health camps across the district, said that an ambulance should have been provided to the society earlier.
“Usually, it is the responsibility of the team organising the camp to ensure that an ambulance reaches on time. However, we got information from the residents that it didn’t come on time and the patients had to wait for long. We then called up the additional chief medical officer in-charge for providing ambulances and it was arranged,” he said.