JU seeks help from health dept to set up Safe Home on campus
KOLKATA: Jadavpur University is seeking medical infrastructural assistance from the state Health department for setting up a Safe Home in its main hostel beside Jadavpur police station. The move comes amid the spike in Covid cases across the state including the city.
The student organisations, non-teaching staff and some teachers had urged Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das to set up a Safe Home on the sprawling JU campus, which is presently closed to curb the spread of COVID-19. The university formed a committee to consider such proposals which held a meeting on Wednesday.
"We have decided to use the common spaces inside the main hostel of the university for setting up Safe Home. As per estimates made by our engineer, we can have provisions for 70 odd beds. The Vice-Chancellor will soon write to the Health department for providing us medical support in terms of oxygen, doctors or nurses. Once we get the nod, we will take up some necessary renovation work which is needed considering the fact that the hostel has been closed since March end last year,"Sneha Manju Basu, JU Registrar said.
The committee has decided not to use the hostel rooms for Safe Home facilities as for now. A senior official of the university said presently a handful of non-teaching staff associated with the maintenance of the hostel is staying there. "We are looking for alternative space for shifting these people," he added.
The state Health department is actively looking for spaces within the city as well as in the state for setting up more Safe Homes so that Covid affected persons with mild or moderate symptoms can be kept in the Safe Homes. There are many families, where there is non-availability of space for home isolation of a Covid affected member. The Safe Homes will be of great help to them. The students are ready to act as volunteers for the inmates of the Safe Home. When the first wave of Corona had hit the state, a section of JU students had come forward to distribute masks and sanitisers, especially among the poor and the needy. They had also run a community kitchen last year.
