A 22-year-old student whose father is admitted to MR Bangur Hospital said the family’s only channel of communication with him could be cut off with the government’s ban on patients using mobile phones in Covid-19 hospitals.

The youth, who is himself quarantined in a city hotel along with his mother and two siblings, said they would enquire about his father’s health and needs and come to know the results of the repeated tests over phone. The family was not informed about any phone number at the hospital where they can call to know about the patient’s condition, he said.

The ban on mobile phones in Covid hospitals was not implemented till late on Friday, so patients could communicate with their families like before. But the student, who has learnt about the ban through his phone while in quarantine, is worried about what would happen if suddenly the authorities take it away. He, however, did not say he was unable to contact his father on Friday.

The 58-year-old patient had called his family members from his mobile phone to give them the news that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. When he ran out of medicines for diabetes, he called up his elder son to ask them to arrange for the medicines. Covid hospitals in the state are not taking in any other patients and so their pharmacies, too, are not stocking up on non-Covid drugs, a doctor at another Covid hospital in the city said.

“My father was admitted to hospital on Thursday. His swab samples were taken on Friday and the report arrived on Saturday. It was my father who first called my elder brother to inform us that he had tested positive,” said the student of English literature.

He said there was no call from Swasthya Bhavan, the headquarters of the state health department for almost 24 hours after that. It was around noon on Sunday that the family received a call from the health department, asking them to remain prepared because they would be taken to a quarantine centre.

The family was given a choice between a pay-and-use quarantine facility at a hotel in Calcutta and a free stay in a government quarantine centre in Barasat. “We chose the hotel because we felt we needed to be within the city in case any help was needed,” said the youth, who along with his elder brother, younger sister and mother are now staying in two rooms of the hotel in central Calcutta, close to their home. Their test reports are yet to arrive.

“The people who took our swab samples at Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute’s New Town campus told us the results would arrive in two to three days. But it has been four days and there is no information yet,” the youth said.

The student said he couldn’t trust the government’s communication system as when his father had run out of his diabetes medicines, the hospital authorities did not alert the family. “My father called us on Tuesday and said he would need his regular medicines for diabetes. With all four of us quarantined, we had to ask our driver to buy medicines to last two weeks and deliver them at MR Bangur Hospital,” he said.

A health department order that reached Covid-19 hospitals on Tuesday had banned the use of mobile phones by patients in such hospitals.

The order, according to doctors, said a mobile phone could transmit the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) to others. But doctors have said that chances of such transmission are low if basic hygiene is maintained, they said.

A doctor at a Covid-19 hospital in the city said that ideally once a patient is admitted to hospital, all medicines should be made available from the hospital’s pharmacy. But in the current situation that is not always possible as pharamacies of Covid-19 hospitals are not stocking up on medicines for other diseases.

“It is a critical issue but has to be handled on a case-to-case basis. I would request all patients to spell out clearly at the time of admission if they are carrying enough medicines for their underlying conditions, if any,” said the doctor. This would help the hospital arrange medicines from the area if no one from the patient’s family is able to deliver the medicines.

The student said the family had not received any information on how to enquire about his father.