Ishtiyaq Ahmed
Srinagar, Apr 5: Wearing masks, and lost in deep thoughts, majority of them are asymptomatic, but yet they have turned out to be positive for deadly COVID -19. They are the bunch of patients under quarantine in an isolation ward at Sher- i- Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Soura, Srinagar.
Sitting on their beds, these patients are pondering as to what this Novel Coronavirus has brought for them as they are not even able to see their loved ones and even those who can care for them are not even allowed to come near them fearing they may also get infected.
Moved by the sudden change in the life just because of an invisible virus, there is silent prayer right from the bottom of hearts of these patients i.e. “O, Almighty, don’t spread this disease anymore, stop it with us only.”
“Ask me what it means to stay away from families, children and home,” a visibly upset patient in an isolation ward of SKIMS, Soura told Kashmir Indepth News Service on Sunday.
“God should save Kashmir and its people from this disease. We have seen worst and cannot bear this pain now. We have not even taken a bath since past almost over a week. We go to collect meals from a gallery. Doctors do come to us and maintain distance. This all is for our safety, but feeling of this all is not good at all.”
Another patient told KINS being in an isolation ward is good for us but a psychological trauma we are going through is something we can never forget if we succeed to defeat this deadly pandemic.
“Thank God, we are able to speak to our dear ones back home through video calls even though calls buffer most of the time due to little over 2 G speed,” the patient said.
“Whenever we speak to our family members including children, it’s not just our tongue but tears speak more than our tongues. Our family members cry so do we and at times calls drop. We console them and they console us. We hope things will get better and this disease doesn’t spread.”
Emotions run high in the ward as a father, with wrinkles of worry on his face, refusing to leave his 10-year-old son, alone. The boy tested positive for COVID-19 and his father negative. But father-son love is at its peak in the isolation ward.
“How can I leave my son alone in this ward? He is too little to be left alone,” the visibly upset father said.
The patients in isolation have no complaints against doctors, food and overall care by the para-medics, but in heart of their hearts, they are praying for the end of this pandemic soon from the soil of Kashmir.
They say, people of Kashmir have seen so many ordeals during the past over three decades and Kashmiri society is too weak to fight this virus, but maintain that “the only hope is Almighty and they were hopeful this too shall pass….”(KINS)
COVID-19: ‘O, Almighty, don’t spread this disease anymore, stop it with us only’
