CHENNAI: Even as the Chennai Corporation's COVID-19 fever camps have largely been successful in bringing out symptomatic cases, survey staff and zonal officials say they find it challenging to bring elderly people to the camps.
A survey staffer from the Thiruvottiyur Zone, who frequents five lanes there every day to check for temperature, says that she comes across 10 to 15 people aged above 60 every day with comorbidities and chronic respiratory symptoms but they avoid coming to the fever camps.
"Since we have been checking the temperature and health status daily since May, we have a record of each resident in the street. So we convince the doctors and officials to conduct a mobile camp in a specific street but the residents avoid the camps, saying they are fine or they go to private doctors," she says.
The staffer says it is mostly people above 60 who refuse to come to the camps. "Normally, a good number of parents bring their children with cold or cough to the camps for getting tablets.
Otherwise, it's just people mostly between the 20s and 40s who attend the camps," she says.
Another survey staffer from Zone-4 (Tondiarpet) says she had arranged a fever camp recently in three streets where elderly people had symptoms of cold, cough and slight temperature but they refused to come for the camps. "In the three streets where camps were held last week, hardly 20 people attended totally," says the staffer.
A look at the data shows that people attending fever camps have drastically reduced by 50 percent in August. From about 30,000 people attending the camps during the third week of July, only 13,822 have attended as of August 16.
From having around an average of 60 outpatients daily during July, now there are only about an average of 35 outpatients a day while the civic body is now only detecting about 1000 people with Influenza Like Symptoms whereas it was detecting around 1800 people in July.
Corporation officials say that volunteers are there to help the elderly come and attend the camps but many, out of fear or anxiety, stay away.
"Some may also find it strenuous to walk all the way to the camp. If there are youngsters in the house, they have to convince the elderly and symptomatic people and help them come to the camps," said the official with the civic body's public health department, adding that there would just be about 15 percent people aged above 60 attending the camps totally.
The official said the civic body is putting up mobile camps at the centre of the streets now to bring more people. The official added that it is worrying to see a drastic dip in people attending the camps and more people must come voluntarily.
Till now, 18.69 lakh people have attended the fever camps in the city.