With COVID First-Line Treatment Centres (FLTCs) becoming crucial in bringing the spiralling cases under control, the Kudumbashree mission has started extending its services to the FLTCs.
The Kudumbashree is providing food and housekeeping services to these centres if required by the local self-government institutions under which the centres function. At present, Kudumbashree is supplying food to 25 FLTCs, while cleaning services are being provided at eight centres.
It is the Kudumbashree development societies that ensure arrangements for food to those who test positive for COVID-19 and are brought to the FLTCs.
In Kottayam, for instance, where two FLTCs have been set up, Kudumbashree provides only food. At the K.R. Narayanan institute hostel where the FLTC was set up on July 4, nearly 45 food packets are given four times a day by the Kudumbashree members in Akalakunnam panchayat. At the women’s hostel in the Kottayam municipal limits, Kudumbashree members under the municipal CDS supply 80 food packets once a day.
Kudumbashree has already been providing food at COVID care centres in the districts.
Housekeeping services are also being provided at select places across three districts—Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthitta, and Idukki.
However, the cleaning operations are not as easily managed as food supply. In one district, Kudumbashree members were reluctant to take up the job owing to the risk factor. A couple of them who did take up the work quit after a few days. The wages were also cited as inadequate.
In Idukki, where 18 Kudumbashree members are involved in cleaning operations in four FLTCs, they have somehow managed to keep things going. The risks involved led many to stop reporting for work. The district mission then roped in the Snehitha gender help desk counsellors to identify people and counsel them individually to get them to work in the FLTCs, a strategy that is bearing dividends. The members are also given a one-hour class before being put to work.
A 25-member Kudumbashree team that includes men is ready to start cleaning work at the Karyavattom stadium as soon as required. They have been selected from the Kudumbashree members who provide cleaning services regularly at Government Medical College Hospital here. The Kudumbashree district mission says one cleaning person will be deployed for 10 patients each.
The mission is also giving kits containing essential items such as soap, brush, paste, and bed sheets to the patients in six FLTCs.