The term ‘quarantine’ refers to the isolation of a person to prevent the further spread of a contagious disease. Alternatively, it can also be used to prevent a person from getting a disease from another infected individual. My familiarity with quarantine began when I was quarantined in a government hospital.

After I returned to Kolkata from Ooty, where I work in a hotel, I visited the local health centre. I had a mild cough. The healthcare workers in the centre conducted a preliminary check-up and with the results in hand instructed me to get quarantined at a local government quarantine centre. I had no choice but to obey the order. So after packing a few things in my bag, I left the following day, accompanied by two men from the health centre.

The urgency of the present pandemic has caused the government to turn several government schools into quarantine centres. I was fortunate enough to be quarantined in Kolkata Medical College and Hospital.

A quarantine centre commonly brings with it a connotation of fear; this is because most of the reports of people staying at these places were negative. I too had the same apprehensions. I heard that inmates were not taken care of at these centres, and in my case, it was a government hospital! Now, government hospitals in our State are already maligned for their inability to provide proper facilities and care to the patients.

I was escorted to the hospital in an ambulance under strict watch. Nobody was allowed to accompany me. I was feeling more like a criminal than a patient. Health-wise I was not feeling too unwell, yet prevention is always better than cure. As I entered the hospital, a staff member gave me the bed number and showed me the ward. Though everything seemed normal, I somehow felt very nervous. I got into my bed and after some time, a staff member, dressed in hazmat suit, came and handed me a bed sheet, soap, a bottle of drinking water and some medicines. Two male patients in my ward started asking me questions. They were eager to know my story and share their own. Since it was the first day and I never knew them properly I was a little reluctant and answered with a lot of hesitation. But as we continued the conversation, I thought to myself that they were the only people I had to talk to for the next 15 days. It was only wise to familiarise myself with them, maybe that way, I would not even realize how soon the days passed.

To my good fortune, my pre-conditioned ideas of a government hospital were proved wrong to some extent. The hospital was reasonably well maintained. It was not dirty as most people portrayed. I hoped that it was not for the pandemic only. However my fears were ascertained when there was no appearance of either nurses or doctors in my ward. Being the curious person that I am, I could not help but ask why no nurse or doctor had come to see us. My companions said with a sarcastic smile that if I was lucky, I would get to see them. They both came to the hospital about four days back and in these four days a doctor had visited them only once.

There was nothing much to do at the quarantine centre, except surfing our smart phones and speaking to our roommates. To keep our loneliness at bay, we would give each other company by talking about various things. Some days it was our family, and on other days, it would be the condition of our State and our country. Covid-19, however, was the star subject of all our conversations irrespective of what we spoke of, a sentence or two about the virus was like a chorus in a song. It only revealed that though all of us were trying to put our minds to something else so that we don’t feel demoralised, the fear of Covid-19 was always lurking in our minds. There were six of us in that ward. We were all alone there in the isolation ward. All quarantined. But we were all together.

Browsing the internet and listening to songs on my phone were the other forms of recreation. It was becoming very depressing for me to be locked up in one room with hardly anything to do. Often I would get tired of surfing the smart phone and just leave it.

I counted the days and each day seemed to be more than a year. The hospital staff used to come from time to time to give us food and record our vitals. That was the only time when we saw any person other than us. The healthcare staff came in hazmat suits. So it was difficult to recognise who’s who. Being in quarantine is not that easy. I was not allowed to go out and socialise with my friends and family. I only saw faces from within a hazmat suit. All this was taking a toll in my mind. Finally, after a week, a doctor arrived. He again took our blood and throat swab to check if we were infected with Covid-19 virus. The next day, the test reports came in, and the doctor came to visit us one more time. We were all worried, and I felt I was taken back to my childhood when I stood before the teacher’s desk on my exam result day.

Finally, the doctor broke his silence and announced that we were released. However, we had to complete our quarantine for another week at home. The hospital authorities were making this arrangement so that they could take in more severely affected people.

I was ecstatic; I hurried to my bed, gathered my belongings as soon as possible and was ready to get into the ambulance to drop us back to our respective houses. My family was informed, and they were eagerly waiting for me. On reaching home, I was escorted to my room and told to stay there. I was more than ready to be locked up in my room than in an isolation ward in a hospital.

This experience of my life is never going to leave me for sure and I hope nobody has to go through this ordeal in life.The term ‘quarantine’ refers to the isolation of a person to prevent the further spread of a contagious disease. Alternatively, it can also be used to prevent a person from getting a disease from another infected individual. My familiarity with quarantine began when I was quarantined in a government hospital.

After I returned to Kolkata from Ooty, where I work in a hotel, I visited the local health centre. I had a mild cough. The healthcare workers in the centre conducted a preliminary check-up and with the results in hand instructed me to get quarantined at a local government quarantine centre. I had no choice but to obey the order. So after packing a few things in my bag, I left the following day, accompanied by two men from the health centre.

The urgency of the present pandemic has caused the government to turn several government schools into quarantine centres. I was fortunate enough to be quarantined in Kolkata Medical College and Hospital.

A quarantine centre commonly brings with it a connotation of fear; this is because most of the reports of people staying at these places were negative. I too had the same apprehensions. I heard that inmates were not taken care of at these centres, and in my case, it was a government hospital! Now, government hospitals in our State are already maligned for their inability to provide proper facilities and care to the patients.

I was escorted to the hospital in an ambulance under strict watch. Nobody was allowed to accompany me. I was feeling more like a criminal than a patient. Health-wise I was not feeling too unwell, yet prevention is always better than cure. As I entered the hospital, a staff member gave me the bed number and showed me the ward. Though everything seemed normal, I somehow felt very nervous. I got into my bed and after some time, a staff member, dressed in hazmat suit, came and handed me a bed sheet, soap, a bottle of drinking water and some medicines. Two male patients in my ward started asking me questions. They were eager to know my story and share their own. Since it was the first day and I never knew them properly I was a little reluctant and answered with a lot of hesitation. But as we continued the conversation, I thought to myself that they were the only people I had to talk to for the next 15 days. It was only wise to familiarise myself with them, maybe that way, I would not even realize how soon the days passed.

To my good fortune, my pre-conditioned ideas of a government hospital were proved wrong to some extent. The hospital was reasonably well maintained. It was not dirty as most people portrayed. I hoped that it was not for the pandemic only. However my fears were ascertained when there was no appearance of either nurses or doctors in my ward. Being the curious person that I am, I could not help but ask why no nurse or doctor had come to see us. My companions said with a sarcastic smile that if I was lucky, I would get to see them. They both came to the hospital about four days back and in these four days a doctor had visited them only once.

There was nothing much to do at the quarantine centre, except surfing our smart phones and speaking to our roommates. To keep our loneliness at bay, we would give each other company by talking about various things. Some days it was our family, and on other days, it would be the condition of our State and our country. Covid-19, however, was the star subject of all our conversations irrespective of what we spoke of, a sentence or two about the virus was like a chorus in a song. It only revealed that though all of us were trying to put our minds to something else so that we don’t feel demoralised, the fear of Covid-19 was always lurking in our minds. There were six of us in that ward. We were all alone there in the isolation ward. All quarantined. But we were all together.

Browsing the internet and listening to songs on my phone were the other forms of recreation. It was becoming very depressing for me to be locked up in one room with hardly anything to do. Often I would get tired of surfing the smart phone and just leave it.

I counted the days and each day seemed to be more than a year. The hospital staff used to come from time to time to give us food and record our vitals. That was the only time when we saw any person other than us. The healthcare staff came in hazmat suits. So it was difficult to recognise who’s who. Being in quarantine is not that easy. I was not allowed to go out and socialise with my friends and family. I only saw faces from within a hazmat suit. All this was taking a toll in my mind. Finally, after a week, a doctor arrived. He again took our blood and throat swab to check if we were infected with Covid-19 virus. The next day, the test reports came in, and the doctor came to visit us one more time. We were all worried, and I felt I was taken back to my childhood when I stood before the teacher’s desk on my exam result day.

Finally, the doctor broke his silence and announced that we were released. However, we had to complete our quarantine for another week at home. The hospital authorities were making this arrangement so that they could take in more severely affected people.

I was ecstatic; I hurried to my bed, gathered my belongings as soon as possible and was ready to get into the ambulance to drop us back to our respective houses. My family was informed, and they were eagerly waiting for me. On reaching home, I was escorted to my room and told to stay there. I was more than ready to be locked up in my room than in an isolation ward in a hospital.

This experience of my life is never going to leave me for sure and I hope nobody has to go through this ordeal in life.
© Arked