THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: I am a doctor at Valiyathura Coastal Speciality Hospital. I am part of a team assigned at different containment zones for swab collection every day. Today, I was posted at Poonthura. On reaching Poonthura PHC, I was allotted a team consisting of a staff nurse, a lab technician and a nursing assistant.The Poonthura PHC staff arranged a car and a driver for dropping us at the AYUSH centre - which is being used as a swab collection centre. Once we reached this AYUSH clinic /centre, we found that the gates were closed. There were no police officers near that area. We saw a crowd of about 60-70 people approaching us.
They surrounded our car and started abusing and attacking it and became further agitated. They threatened to lock us up at the centre till they had the attention of the media. They kept harassing us and hitting the car and started saying things like, “If we have the disease, you should get it too” and removed their masks and started coughing and spitting on the car. The staff nurse started crying and we were all begging to let us go. After holding us back for more than 5 minutes, they asked us to go back. After that we returned to CSH, Poonthura.
(Dr Dyuthi Hariprasad, doctor at Valiyathura Coastal Speciality Hosptial)