In early April, Indranil Chakraborty, an engineer by profession, developed a mild fever and began suspecting Covid-19. So, he decided to get an RT-PCR test done. He isolated himself immediately from the rest of his family, and once his results came in, contacted Dr Manjeet Singh Arora, consultant and general medicine and community health expert at Fortis Hospital, Mulund. After learning of his symptoms, Dr Arora put him on a course of medication. Chakraborty also decided to avail of Fortis’s homecare services, a Rs 7,000-package for both him and his son, who also tested positive later. The package involved close monitoring from the hospital’s medical support staff, who closely tracked his temperature and oxygen levels on the phone three times a day for a span of 17 days. They also kept an eye out for any abnormalities, and included dieticians and physicians who instructed him to follow a certain diet and workout plan. 

“If you go to a hospital, you are entering a space where the viral load is very high. So, if you can manage the whole thing in your home, that is the best thing,” says Chakraborty. He admits that there was an initial fear of a sudden crisis unfolding at home, but having a doctor to consult over telephone and video calls put his mind at ease. Early detection and awareness along with the stringent care plan of a competent doctor and regular follow-ups by the homecare team, he says, helped him manage the infection at home. Chakraborty believes that if doctors were similarly available  on call in sync with a homecare treatment setup, a lot of the present problems faced by people would be solved.