Odisha: Covid orphan girl shunned by society, starves for two days

CUTTACK: Fate could not have dealt a more cruel blow to a 15-year-old girl, snatching both her parents within a span of only 10 days. But, worse was in store for the hapless girl. She had to spend two days all alone in the house without food with even the neighbours shying away from coming to her help.

This heart-rending incident has occurred at Gauda Sahi near Birat Bazar in Choudwar where Narayan Biswal, his wife Sarojini and daughter had been staying in a rented house for the last one and half years. The Covid-19 infected the girl, who lost her parents to the deadly virus, went without food and treatment for almost 48 hours till the district Childline officials came to her rescue. 

Narayan was an employee at Odisha Secretariat and wife Sarojini worked as a maid in the neighbourhood. She is studying in Class IX at the local Adarsha Vidyalaya. After being infected by coronavirus, both Narayan and Sarojini were undergoing treatment at SCB Covid hospital. While Narayan succumbed on May 23, Sarojini died on June 4. 

The girl was attending to her mother in the hospital and had got tested as per norms. She was also found infected but as she was asymptomatic, there was no need for her hospitalisation. After cremation of her mother’s body at Sati Chaura crematorium on June 5, she returned to the rented house. But,  no neighbour nor the house owner offered any help as she was infected. If that was not bad enough, some people even turned up at the door asking for payment of dues owed by her parents for getting essentials like milk and other things.

“I stayed confined in a room inside the house. There was around 250 gram flattened rice, which finished by Sunday noon. I had to go without a morsel till the officials came to my rescue,” said the girl, adding that the milkman who had stopped providing milk came in the afternoon and asked for payment.

Acting on a tip-off, district Childline coordinator Narayan Shukla rushed to the village and rescued the girl with the help of local anganwadi worker Swapnamayee Swain. “We found the girl lying in a pitiable condition without food and treatment inside the room. We have rehabilitated her temporarily in the Servants of India Society (SIS) at Choudwar,” he said. 

The girl was produced before district Child Welfare Committee (CWC) on Monday. As all her relatives refused to receive her, she has been sheltered in the SIS which is reserved exclusively for rehabilitating the infected orphans, Shukla said. “Doctors have checked her health condition and she is now under treatment. After recovering, she will be shifted to a child care institution,” said Shukla. 

Meanwhile, the district administration has prepared list of five children who have become orphans after losing both parents and 40 others who have lost a single parent to Covid-19. The list will be submitted to the government for necessary assistance and rehabilitation, district child protection officer Pragati Mohanty said.