CHENNAI: The city corporation has appointed nearly 3,500 volunteers to monitor and cater to the basic needs of people under home quarantine. The volunteers, who are mostly in their 20s and early 30s, are braving all odds to help people under quarantine.
P Rajan, a volunteer in Thiru-Vi-Ka Nagar, said, “Our work begins at 7:30 am. We meet the zonal official, who briefs us on the positive cases, and we then go to the field. I am handling eight cases and our primary job is to ensure that these people remain at home. We have to buy them anything they need.” The 26-year-old, who stays with his parents, says stigma does not bother him.
“I always wear a mask, gloves and sanitise myself regularly. I know I am safe and am not bothered about what my neighbours say. All volunteers, in fact, are working under the same pressure. Most of them have lost their jobs due to the pandemic,” he said. The most difficult part, Rajan added, is keeping people at home. “A lot of them try to sneak out citing some kind of ‘emergency.’ We have to counsel them every day. Some people also ask for things we cannot do.
For example, one of the patients who was just discharged asked whether I could get him biryani. As a volunteer, my job is to bring whatever they ask, but we also expect them to be a little responsible,” he said.
A Rajesh Kumar, a volunteer at Puthur, said, “On Sundays, when there is a complete lockdown, catering to people becomes difficult. For example, this Sunday I desperately went around trying to get milk packets for 17 houses.
We are unable to help people who call us after 2 pm. It gets tough when people ask us for medicines at night.” Most volunteers said they decided to help people under quarantine because they could empathise with them. “Leave alone 14 days, it is difficult to be quarantined for even for two days with nobody around. We feel proud to realise that we play a role in the fight against the virus,” said R Usha, a volunteer who has shifted to her friend’s house to stay away from her aged parents.
A senior Corporation official said, “We ourselves were taken aback seeing the selflessness of young volunteers. On our part, we are doing our best by providing them safety equipment, caps and food, apart from paying them Rs 500 every day.”