New Delhi: As part of a mission to rescue the Indians stuck in various countries abroad, India has started ‘Vande Bharat’ operation amid the covid 19 pandemic. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued additional guidelines for quarantine of returnees from abroad, their contacts and isolation of suspects or confirmed cases in private facilities which are the hotels/lodges and other accommodation services which will be transformed into quarantine facilities.
According to the guidelines issued on Thursday by the Health Ministry, there are a large number of facilities such as hotels, service apartments, lodges which remain unoccupied due to the impact of COVID-19 on travel and tourism. There are also occasions where people who don’t have the requisite space at home may choose such facilities. This can reduce the pressure on the family, soothe the person, and likely, safe-guard the family members and immediate neighborhood.
The ministry has directed the owners of the facilities to make them either a quarantine or isolation facilities as they cannot co-exist, the facility owner will have a choice to dedicate it for either of the two. The facility will be providing single rooms for contacts and cases with attached washrooms. However, this is going to be a paid service and the occupants can rent it for the duration of their stay. The ministry said the charges for the housing and services shall be fixed by the facility with the suggestions and advice of the state government and widely publicized.
The cases in the isolation facilities will only be the ones who are assessed to be pre-symptomatic or with very mild symptoms. The ministry said that facility dedicated for isolation will follow the standards established for COVID Care Centers by the Central government.
“Such facility that opts for isolation will have separate earmarked areas for keeping suspect cases and confirmed cases and will ensure no inter-mingling of these two categories. The contact or patient opting for such quarantine or isolation facility will give an undertaking available at the ministry’s website,” said the Health Ministry.
The Health Ministry also asked the owners of the facilities to ensure in-house availability of a trained doctor and a nurse on 24X7 basis. The doctor will monitor the contacts or cases in quarantine/isolation facilities once a day on basic parameters of temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and pulse oximetry and keep record of the same. He shall also inform the District Surveillance Officer regarding the list of cases/contacts admitted to such facility and their health status. The facility should network with an approved laboratory for testing samples as per the ICMR guidelines. The quarantined or isolated persons should not be allowed to meet visitors however, the ministry said, they could talk on the phone.
The Ministry said that the facility should have wifi service and ensure that the people availing the facilities must download Aarogya Setu App on their mobiles and that it should remain active at all times.
It has also given a prerequisite additional guidelines section for the facilities on how to maintain their accommodation services. The facility is required to have sufficient manpower for the work including the medical personnel. They also need to make sure that the proper instructions about each case/contact have been given during the check-in. It has asked the owners to provide freshly cooked food through room service with ample physical distancing through in-house catering only. The linens, towels, etc. and rooms will have to be disinfected and the facility ought to follow infection prevention and control practices as per the guidelines with the staff should be instructed to call free ambulance service at 108 or other ambulance as per the requirement or emergency. The discharge of the contacts/cases from the facility will be in accordance with the discharge policy, said the Health Ministry.
