Kalyan: Shortage of beds at Thane civil hospital led the 30 inmates of Aadharwadi jail to roam around for seven hours. The inmates who all tested positive for Covid-19 were not even admitted at Don Bosco school and temporary Covid-19 hospital at Kalyan. Finally at 7 pm, they were admitted at Tata Amantra hospital in Bhiwandi.
Sources from the jail said with cases rising across the state an antigen test for inmates was carried out on Friday. "We carried out an antigen test for 149 inmates on Friday. On Monday, we got a report confirming 30 of them are positive. Most of them had low symptoms including cough, cold and fever so we isolated them in a barrack on Friday itself. On Monday after the report, we sent them to Thane civil hospital. As they would get proper treatment including medicines and oxygen on time. As keeping in jail would not be safe and civil is a dedicated centre for them," said a police officer.
When contacted AS. Sadhaphule, Superintendent of Aadharwadi Jail, confirmed that about 30 male inmates tested positive and said they shifted them to Thane civil hospital.
The Aadharwadi Jail at present has 1,905 inmates and an antigen test of 149 people was carried out. All the safety and precautionary measures were carried out for them. "From giving turmeric milk twice in a day to following diet and immunity medicine if required. All precautions are taken for the inmates," said a jail official.
Sources from the jail claim the 30 inmates were taken in two ambulances separating 13 and 17 inmates. They left Aadharwadi jail at 12:30 pm to reach Thane civil hospital at 1:30 pm. "After reaching the hospital staff said it was full of beds and inmates couldn't be admitted. Requests from the team and superiors fell on deaf ears and after an hour we were asked to move to Don Bosco school in Kalyan. We reached Kalyan school at 4 pm. But it was the same situation where they too rejected giving the same reason. Again at 5 pm we left for Tata Amantra hospital in Bhiwandi and almost by 7 pm all were admitted," said the sources.
However, the two ambulances with three police vans squatting them almost kept roaming around for hours. Resembling a Bollywood movie sequence, the inmates kept roaming with the police squad for 7 hours. Starting with a police van in front then an ambulance then again a police van an ambulance backing a police van. There were almost around 25 to 30 policemen including police officers and police constables.
On April 16, the Free Press Journal covered a story about 198 inmates who tested positive across Maharashtra jails. The data last week showed the lowest at Aadharwadi i.e one inmate was tested positive. But within a week almost 30 have been tested positive and were shifted to the civil hospital in an ambulance.
