Doctor travels 2200 km during lockdown to fight coronavirus in his home state

Kolkata, May 13 () Doctors are in the forefront ofthe war with the killer coronavirus and a keen young medicohas travelled more than 2200 km by car in stifling PPE gearfrom Pune to Kolkata braving fears of infection andrestrictions to movement during the country-wide lockdown tobe with the people of his home state West Bengal in the timeof distress.

Rohit Panda, who has recently passed MBBS from BharatiVidyapeeth University Medical College in Pune, was unfazedwith the myriad restrictions in place and travelled for overfour days across five states to fulfill his dream.He will join duty in the medicine department of the state-runS S K M Hospital in the city from next week after someformalities are completed.

"My internship in rural areas in Maharashtra was overon April 17. During my internship I could sense how fastcoronavirus was spreading its tentacles in the country andthe magnitude of its outbreak. I was also following theemerging situation in Bengal and I decided to join the medicalfraternity in my state to be at the side of its people.However, there were procedural delays in getting an e-passfrom the authorities in Maharashtra without which I could nottravel," he told on Wednesday.

He had applied for work in West Bengal which wasgranted by the state health department. But withrestrictions in place on travel , he had approached the officeof the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for help onMay 2. He was granted an e-pass for inter-state travelpromptly by the West Bengal health and public welfaredepartment on that very day.

He did not waste time and set off on the arduousPune-Kolkata road journey the very next day at 8 am beforethe curfew hour began in the corona-hit Maharashtra city. Hecrossed the borders of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana,Andhra Pradesh and Odisha over the next four days beforereaching Kolkata on May 7.

Panda said that during his journey through thehighways he saw large number of migrant labourers waiting forhours at the inter-state borders at the health screeningkiosks .

"As I entered Odisha border from Andhra Pradesh I sawthat hundreds of migrant labourers were made to stand inqueue. There was no social distancing (an important measureto prevent the spread of coronavirus) between them. Irefused to stand in the same queue and so had to wait forseveral hours in my car before being checked and allowed toproceed," he recalled.

"I want to save lives. So I was armed with allprotective equipment - face shields, hand gloves, the PPEgear. I took off the jacket only when it became too heavyfor me to move," Panda said.

He recalls the help extended by locals to him atleast twice in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha once to change aflat tyre and another to change the coolant.

"I was in a hurry to reach home and there were timeswhen I feared I would be delayed. Common people came to myhelp," he said.

Panda had praise for arrangements made for migrantlabourers at the West Bengal border. When I reached theBengal border on May 7 morning the one very big difference Inoticed was that there were better arrangements for thethousands of migrant labourers waiting there. There was aquarantine unit and rapid tests were being conducted.

Quizzed why he wanted to be in Kolkata instead ofworking among the people in Maharashtra, Panda said "I hadheard many health care workers were getting infected bycoronavirus in Bengal. In Maharashtra the number was lower.So I wanted to join the healthcare soldiers in Bengal to wagethe battle from the frontline.

"Also I wanted to fight against COVID -19 in myhome state. Otherwise serving people in Maharashtra or Bengalis the same for a doctor as one is serving the people of thecountry," the young medico said. SUS KKKK KK