KOCHI: “Can you call me back in a while, I am guiding my ambulance driver to my home,” a Kerala taxi driver, who fought and won COVID-19 on Thursday said, too excited to get back home after his 16-day hospital stay.
“It’s been weeks since I last saw a human face. All these days, I had been attended to by those in masks and PPE,” he said.
The 37-year-old taxi driver from Vallarpadam says that all throughout, he had the confidence that he would survive the disease. It was on March 23 he got the ominous call from the Health Department telling him that he had transported a COVID-19 patient in his cab and he was on his direct contact list.
Initially, anger and fear filled his mind but later he started to hope for the best. “I was angry that I got it from a complete stranger but then when I saw his actual condition in the ICU -- he was battling for life -- I felt sad and my rage subdued. His condition was really bad as he was a heart patient,” said the cabbie. On March 25, he got admitted in the Government Medical College Hospital, Kalamassery.
“I got to know that the passenger’s wife had also tested positive for COVID-19. Then I knew that things would get worse if I stayed at home and informed the authorities that I would like to get admitted in the hospital. Besides mine, the samples of my wife and mother were also tested but both of them tested negative. I tested positive that evening itself,” he said.
He had sore throat, fever and pneumonia when he was admitted in the hospital.
“The life in isolation was not that boring. We were allowed to use our phones and read newspapers. I was in constant contact with my wife, Reneesha, and mother over the phone. The hospital facilities and the treatment were very satisfactory,” he said.
The doctors who treated the cabbie said they administered Ritonavir, a drug used for HIV treatment, to him after his health condition worsened.
“His sample test results came negative after the fourth day of administering the medicine,” said a doctor who treated him.
Though he is happy to be home, the survivor is still apprehensive about his future.
“Many came to know about my disease and I am worried whether they would ostracise me. Being a taxi driver, I fear if I would get as many trips as I used to,” he said.