Hyderabad : Fearing stigma, UK returnees play hide and seek

Hyderabad : The Telangana Health Department officials are experiencing a tough time in their efforts to track down or reach out to the UK returned flyers in Telangana from December 9, the data of which was shared by Central agencies to various State governments including Telangana.

Because of social stigma and fears of neighbours in the locality getting to know, some of the UK returnees are reportedly not extending co-operation to Health Department officials contacting them over the phone. The returnees are asking the officials not to come to their homes but express their willingness to come down to health centres for tests.

When told that it was not advisable to move out of the houses, the returned passengers were making conditions to the health staff not to come in ambulances or wearing PPEs, but to come on two-wheelers. Some others are not cooperating and making the health staff or the ANMs wait for nearly one hour sometimes, said a senior Deputy DMHO. Only when told that the Health Department would pass on their information to the police to intervene, the stubborn passengers are falling in line and agreeing to give samples.

Some passengers said they were out of the town or State on some work and would return home after a few days and hence no sample tests were done on them. This is not the end of woes of the ground level Health staff. In some cases, the addresses and phone numbers shared to them were found to be different or the phone numbers are not of India but the UK, which are of no use.

"A UK returnee's address when visited by the Health staff was found to be a school and not house. Hence the person was not located. We were told to submit details of passengers with incorrect addresses or phone numbers to the State Health Department, which it will collect from all districts and try to address it probably by taking help from the police," the official said. The Health Department in its press note stated that they identified 184 UK returnees whose addresses and phone numbers were incorrect and not helping it to locate them.