Category: Nagpur Local

A senior police inspector from Koradi police station is under the spotlight for punishing people “unnecessarily wandering” on the street by making them sit in the scorching sun. The officer, Wazir Sheikh, took the action at his own level by chalking out rounds at an intersection and making people found “pointlessly loitering” on the streets sit for six hours under the scorching Nagpur sun, in what he calls a “detention camp”.

“Don’t call it punishment. It’s a sunbath to disinfect them. People have no seriousness and awareness about coronavirus threat. So, we make them sit in those rounds in the detention camp chalked out on the street as per social distancing norms and enlighten them (prabodhan). We have also made then perform yoga today. We will have different themes on different days,” Sheikh told

Nagpur’s maximum temperature on Tuesday was 37.8 degrees Celsius.

Sheikh has also released a video of his “detention camp” on social media, which he feels could act as a deterrent. “We have so far taken this action against 59 persons. Besides, we have also fined their vehicles,” Sheikh said.

Asked if everyone found moving without a valid reason is detained, Sheikh said: “No. People above 50 and anyone apparently unfit to take it is spared.” Asked what if anyone gets a sunstroke instead of sunbath, Sheikh said, “We give them water, food, lassi, buttermilk, etc to rule this out.”

On whether only bike-riders are subjected to ”sunbath”, Sheikh said, “mostly yes. But we have detained some car passengers too. But nobody would generally take out his car for flimsy reasons.”

Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Kadam admitted that Sheikh hadn’t consulted them before initiating the action. “Our officers are at their wits’ end trying to dissuade people from venturing out but that doesn’t always work. So they decide their own strategies,” he said. Asked if he agreed with Sheikh’s method, Kadam said, “we have discouraged him from doing it.”

Sheikh, however, said, “We will continue the sunbath programme further. We will do it with different themes every day.” Asked why he didn’t opt for the regular impounding of vehicles to deter people, he said, “it requires a lot of manpower and later a lot of legal work.”

The officer, however, is confident that this would deter others from the misadventure of coming out on the streets.

“We will have to do it in novel ways since other methods are not paying off. Now, just think why you called. It’s because what we are doing is different, isn’t it? People will get the sense of the matter after feeling the heat,” he says.

In the continuing difficult weather of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, we can see a ray of hope in Nagpur. Dr Sameer Arbat, a well-known Nagpur medical practitioner, seems to have built a safety box for complicated bronchoscopy procedures for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients. Dr. Sameer was the youngest interventional pulmonologist in Nagpur, and was recently selected for the World Bronchology Association (WABIP) program as the youngest Foreign Faculty.

The doctor has developed the safety package in patients who are unsure about the COVID-19 disease to perform bronchoscopy procedures. This is designed by Dr. Sameer Arbat with a box with apertures on different sides while thinking about the Bronchoscopy Security Box. Two operator openings can be used, one is called the assistant opening and the other is known as the bronchoscopic opening. Every is protected by a plastic sheet valve that opens and, along with the bronchoscope, the inlet and exit of the hands.

In addition, an additional opening can be found that connects a negative suction cannula for the aerosol suction produced during the procedure. The patient then ends up getting the PVC sheet curtains to fit the patient’s shoulders or arms. A box can also be used for endotracheal intubation, which is an important method for monitoring COVID-19 patients. Just last month Dr. Sameer planned and conceptualized the unit.

A Nagpur Government Medical College patient has dissimulated his medical history and contacted more than 30 doctors and other physicians before testing for COVID-19.

NAGPUR, Maharashtra: nine physicians, after having been admitted to cerebrovascular complications, were put under quarantine in Nagpour’s larger hospital, the Government Medical College, concealed that his son, with whom he was in contact was being treated for COVID-19. The patient himself subsequently screened for coronavirus.

Founded in 1947, Nagpur GMC is one of two nodal hospitals in Nagpur to treat COVID-19 patients and acts as a regional hub across Maharashtra, Vidarbha.

The 44-year-old patient was taken to GMC on Friday after a private hospital in the town had turned away. A GMC resident doctor anonymously told that the patient and his relatives were asked multiple times when he had been admitted to contacting all COVID-19 patients, as is now the standard procedure in government hospitals. But they denied it.

“Doctors accused him of Saturday showing signs of cough, cold and fever because such symptoms are typically not seen in brain vascular patients. If the doctors pressed on, he announced that his cousin, after positive coronaviral examination, was admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College in Nagpur. Everybody in the ward first tried to thrash him, but the doctors in the ward immediately moved him to an isolation ward and sent his samples to be tested, “the doctor said.

By then, more than 30 GMC staff, including physicians, nurses and other workers, had been in touch with the patient. The sample tests on Sunday showed that he has screened the highly infectious disease positively.

The patient’s wife and son both screened Coronavirus positively and were admitted to the GMC.

The richest state in India, Maharashtra, has now recorded 230 coronavirus cases, the highest in the world. There are 16 cases in Nagpur alone.

There are concerns that a rise in the number of cases, as seen by others in front of India in terms of their trajectory, may soon be overwhelmed by GMC, while GMC has over 1,000 doctors, especially if more people have to quarantine. Just on Monday, 70 suspected COVID-19 patients were admitted to the hospital.

More than 780,000 people worldwide have screened the virus positively, killing more than 37,000. Scientists have said that the virus follows an exponential pattern of progression, which means that more and more people are infected with it every day.

Doctors, nurses and other medical workers working in India’s crowded public health system have sought to counter the pandemic with their backs against the wall. In addition to the lack of medical supplies including masks and gloves, they also have to contend with neighbours’ and relatives’ suspicion and concerns for their own health.

These problems develop when patients conceal their past because of fear or ignorance.