Bhubaneswar Conducts COVID-19 Tests For Inmates Of Shelter For Urban Homeless In Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Continuing its fight against the pandemic, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has conducted the COVID-19 testing for the inmates of the Shelter for Urban Homeless (SUH). The effort, which started at the three SUH of Ganganagar, Bhimpur and Chandrasekharpur on Sunday (August 23), continued today at SUH Ghatikia. While today the COVID tests were done on 21 inmates, yesterday the test was done on 102 inmates of the three SUH. The mobile COVID testing van from BMC and Capital Hospital conducted the tests of the SUH inmates. In the Chandrasekharpur centre the inmates went to the nearby testing facility to get their tests done.

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Currently, the city has eight SUH spread across the city. While the SUH facilities at Ganganagar, Bhimpur, Chandrasekharpur, Malisahi, Ashok Nagar and Social Equity Centre are managed by social service organisation Odisha Patita Uddhar Samiti, the SUH at Ghatikia and Baramunda are managed by social service organisation Vikas. It is learned that the rest of the SUH and their inmates will be coveted by COVID-19 tests subsequently.

Out of the 102 tested yesterday, 24 from Chandrasekharpur were women as the SUH is having women-only inmates. At Ganganagar and Chandrasekharpur old age and mentally challenged persons are staying under the supervision of OPUS.

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Octogenarian Sailabala Mohanty (82) of SUH Chandrasekharpur said, “During this pandemic situation when every individual is worried about the coronavirus, the step taken by the BMC authorities to conduct tests for the inmates of SUH is a welcome step and it proves the sensitive and responsible attitude of the civic body towards the needy people.”

Arikshita Raula (70) from Ganganagar SUH said,

We feel proud that the city administration also thinks about our well-being at this pandemic situation as the entire administrative mechanism is extremely busy with the COVID control exercise.’

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A testing camp was organized at Gopabandhu Leprosy Colony in the Buddha Nagar slum area on August 17. More than 72 differently-abled people turned up to undergo the Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests. Among the people tested there were elderly persons, people with disabilities and leprosy-affected patients.

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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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