It is 7 in the morning and Mushtaq Ahmad, a COVID lab technician is getting ready to leave for his duty. ¡°I have to reach the hospital at 9.45 am,¡± said Ahmad who is posted at Primary Health Centre (PHC) Boniyar, a remote area in northern Kashmir.
As per his staff, Ahmad is one the dedicated employees of the hospital and someone who hardly takes off from his work. They say out of 78,000 COVID tests done at block Boniyar since March 2020, over 30,000 tests have been done by Ahmad alone.
¡°After reaching hospital, I first meet the storekeeper to take the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and COVID sample kits and then I leave along with my team that includes data uploader, line listing, helper and driver to the place or spot assigned as per the roster plan,¡± said Ahmad who hails from Baidan village of Boniyar.
¡°Before leaving, we inform the local nodal officers both from administration and health for mobilisation, otherwise it becomes impossible to take the samples of the people there,¡± he said.
The 35-year-old Ahmad told Indiatimes that following all the Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs), they take the samples. ¡°From my team, one helps me to maintain the social distance, another uploads the record of the people, third one gives them a testing kit and at last I take their sample,¡± he said.
The team mostly uses the spaces outside the markets, banks, school for sampling where there is a huge gathering. Many times they use their ambulance as a space to take the samples too.
The hospital has three COVID teams- two teams remain in the field while the third one is at headquarters. ¡°We take over 250 Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) and 200 Real-time Reverse Transcription¨CPolymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) samples in a day,¡± he said.??????????
When asked how tough it is to motivate the people to follow SOPs and then take their samples normally, he said, ¡°Most of the time they fight with us over taking their sample. We have to first motivate them that it is not going to hurt them. In fact, we had to be very careful while taking the swabs of the kids.¡±
To this he further added, ¡°Earlier, we had to register an FIR too when some villagers pelted stones on us and resisted us from collecting their samples.¡±?
Ahmad said that they follow all the SOPs strictly to keep themselves and their families safe. ¡°We don¡¯t take food during work. We use sanitizers frequently. After our work is completed, we dispose-off the kit properly and wash our faces and hands with soap,¡± he said.
¡°In a bid to keep my family safe, I try to maintain a social distance with them when I go back home. Our COVID test is done every week so as to check if we are alright,¡± he said.
With the spike in COVID cases across the valley, Ahmad said testing has also increased at their hospital. ¡°In normal days, we used to do 100 RT-PCR, now it has gone up to 200 and RAT has touched the number of 260,¡± he said.
Ahmad calls it a ¡®risky profession¡¯. ¡°In summers there have been incidents when my colleagues who were out to take samples in the scorching heat fainted and had to admit them. Our lives are always in danger mode,¡± he said.
Ahmad is very popular at the hospital as the doctors say that if you ring him up at midnight, he will reach for the service. ¡°This summer there was an incident when a pregnant woman was brought in and doctors were suspecting her of COVID positive and then I was called at 1 am to take her swab,¡± he said.
With the valley witnessing extreme cold and snow, the heath workers are reaching to far-off villages and near Line of Control (LoC) to collect the samples of the villagers. ¡°We trek kilometers and walk in heavy snow to reach these villages. We have been also guiding the people of these areas on how to stay safe from the deadly virus,¡± he said.
Before signing off, Ahmad said he has a small demand from the government. ¡°If we could be paid any incentives that will trigger more seriousness among the other employees to work with dedication,¡± he said.
It is pertinent to mention here that Medical Block Boniyar has 38 sub-centers, 3 PHCs, 5 New Type PHCs and has over 12 doctors and 70 paramedic staff.
Block Medical Officer (BMO) Boniyar Parvaiz Masoodi said that his entire staff is hardworking and dedicated. ¡°But Mushtaq is very different. I am proud of his contribution towards patients and this hospital,¡± he said.
Masoodi said there were some black sheep in the hospital who were just after minting the money with their wrong doings. ¡°We have shown them doors and chosen the front runners like Mushtaq,¡± he said adding, ¡°We have made sample collecting a door-to-door process now and people must come forward so as to stay safe and keep others safe too.¡±
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