Denied medicine and food, diabetic Tablighi member dies at Delhi quarantine centre

New Delhi, 23 April 2020 [Fik/News Sources]: In a shocking incident  a 50-year-old diabetic patient died on Wednesday at the COVID-19 quarantine centre set up by the Delhi government in Sultanpuri.

Despite several request to staff and doctors he  was not given food and medicine on time .

Mohamed Musthafa, a resident of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, had been moved to the quarantine centre in West Delhi from Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital four days ago even before his final test results had come in.

He had travelled to Delhi to attend the Tablighi Jamaat conference on March 19. He was scheduled to leave on March 24 like several others from Tamil Nadu. But, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the lockdown giving only a four-hour notice, he was taken along with several others to Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital on March 31. He had initially tested positive and was in the hospital until April 18.

“Mustafa had been requesting the doctors for diabetes medicine and for timely food. But, no one wanted to listen. He told me that he would be okay if he got medicine and food. And now I will not even be able to see him,” cried his wife Razia. They have two teenage sons.

At the Sultanpuri quarantine centre, breakfast comes only at 11.30 am and that is two slices of bread and banana. Lunch is two rotis with a vegetable curry and dinner is usually 2 rotis with dal. “Lunch comes after 2.30 pm. How can a diabetic patient survive? A person who is diabetic has to eat every two hours. We don’t get tea in the morning and we are not allowed to step out to buy a packet of biscuit or chocolate. We have the money, but there are policemen guarding the quarters and they scream at us if we step out of the building. But, they will also not help us,” Inayatullah told NH, who has also been quarantined at Sultanpuri. He is worried for himself also as he is diabetic. He said he has to save bits of the rotis so that he doesn’t faint.

Last week, another man from Tamil Nadu, who had come for the Tablighi Jamaat conference, had died at Lok Nayak Hospital and the staff misled the son, who was also admitted in the same hospital. The hospital hadn’t informed him if his father had tested positive for the virus. Instead, after his death, they called his relatives in Tamil Nadu to inform them of the death.