Influx of ‘ill’ new headache for Amreli admn

Rajkot: First, they battled massive illegal influx of natives from Surat, and now their ‘legal entry’ too has thrown a frustrating medical challenge to the Amreli district administration.
Official sources said that large number of people coming to their natives in Amreli district are conveniently concealing their medical condition to the health teams at the checkposts.
In fact, officials said they are not revealing the co-morbities even while applying online with Surat district collectorate for inter-state travel passes.
In fact, many even pop paracetamol tablets commonly used for fever.
When questioned about their medical history at the Chavand checkpost, majority of them declare that they are completely healthy. But when taken to government quarantine facilities in their respective talukas, they start demanding regular medication for diabetes or blood pressure, officials told TOI.
Recently, a 50-year-old man who returned home in Kadiyali village near Rajula on May 9, did not reveal at the checkpost that he suffered from serious liver and cardiomegaly (enlarged heart) . He died the next day.
Officials said nearly 40% of people coming from Surat are either concealing or providing wrong medical history. More than 36,000 people have ‘officially’ entered Amreli from the checkpost between May 7 and May 10.
As per the government’s inter-state travel guidelines, people above 65 years, children less than 10 years, pregnant women or those having co-morbid conditions are not allowed to travel as they fall in the high-risk category.
“They have valid passes to travel. But their entry is actually illegal as they are misdeclaring their medical conditions. We can lodge an offence against each one of the, but it’s a Herculean task as number of such people are very very high,” said Amreli collector Aayush Oak. Officials said despite clear guidelines, most families are carrying children less than 10 years.
Amreli-based surgeon Dr Bharat Kanabar said, “We don’t have enough medical staff in the district to examine these many number of people. They are coming because of financial compulsion, but if they will continue flouting rules, it’s posing a grave risk to this green zone.”
Medical experts say even a healthy person travelling for over 12 hours without sleep and standing in queue at checkpost in this scorching heat will have high temperature. This makes it difficult to decide if a person is Covid suspect or not.