Having spent 88 days so far in isolation after testing positive multiple times for the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a 33-year-old patient is anxious to go home so he can provide for his family, which he says is being discriminated against.
The asymptomatic patient was among the first group of persons who were placed in quarantine following the death of Ratna Baboolall, who is Guyana’s first confirmed COVID-19 case.
The patient, who prefers not to be named, told Sunday Stabroek that his family was placed in quarantine at the West Demerara Hospital subsequent to the death of Baboolall. His wife and two minor daughters were tested 14 days after being placed in quarantine but their results were negative. They remained at the quarantine facility an additional week before they were tested again. Their tests results were negative while he and three other relatives tested positive. That was the first time he was tested. As a result his family was allowed to go home, while he and the other relatives were placed in isolation.
He said that he and several other COVID-19 patients remained at the West Demerara Hospital for an additional 20 days before they were transferred to the Diamond isolation facility.
Thus far, the patient said, he has been tested 12 times. Eight of the first tests were positive but the ninth test was negative. The patient recalled that he was very excited to go home when the negative result was returned because he is the sole bread winner for his family and was anxious to return to take care of them.
However, a second test to validate the negative result returned positive, which was a surprising turn of events for the patient said, who said the doctors explained to him that if his result was negative, it was likely that the second test would also be negative. “I was very surprised and when I questioned them about it the first time, they decided to carry all negative patients to Ocean View to avoid reinfection,” the patient stated.
After patients at the Diamond Isolation Unit are tested, they remain there for four to six days before they receive their results. If their results are negative, they are then transferred to the Ocean View to await a second test which would determine whether they are cleared of the infection.
‘Out there suffering’
The man said he has accepted the positive test results but is anxious to go home because his family has been struggling to make ends meet and his eldest child will be writing the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) in July, which makes everything much harder for the family.
The patient also disclosed that since the members of his family returned home from the West Demerara Hospital, they have been discriminated by residents of their community. “No taxi service willing to go to the house to carry them to the stores and shopkeepers are refusing to sell them and when they walking on the road people are shouting and calling them names,” he said, while noting that they are being met with the same treatment up to now and it is taking a toll on their mental state.
Due to the constant discrimination, he said, they are barely surviving and the Ministry of Public Health is making no efforts to assist them. He said that they were given a food voucher sometime ago but even that was not enough to sustain them.
“I know that I am in here for a reason but they are not helping my family outside or checking on them. I’m in here for so long and I’m thinking about them. I deh in here, I getting good treatment but my family out there suffering,” the patient added.
He said that being in isolation is so frustrating, especially since he is asymptomatic. “Nobody would like to be here knowing that they have a family out there and can’t be with them,” he stated.
He further revealed that there are at least four patients who are going through the same thing as him. Earlier this week, he said, he and three others were taken to the Ocean View facility after testing negative. All four were carried back to the facility at Diamond after their second test results returned positive.
“I am here longer than any other persons but there are other persons who are going through the same. They have us back and forth all the time, negative, positive, negative, positive. I’m here from the beginning and there a new patients coming in all the time and those patients who are coming are expecting me to leave but patients coming in and leaving before me and when I come back here, they laughing at me,” he stated.
“I keep on watching every day: patients coming in here and some can hardly walk and they gone out and leave me here still and me, a strong, strong person, deh in here. Since I deh here, I never get a headache yet and I keep on watching people leaving, knowing that I am strong. It’s not nice. I don’t know if they are holding me for spite and all the time I’m trying to figure out why the test coming out negative [then] positive all the time.”
