Stepping in

It is early morning when the doorbell rings. I’ve been waiting for someone from Dr Lal PathLabs to collect my husband’s blood sample. I look through the peephole. There he is, wearing a  mask and gloves, weighed down by a giant backpack.

I am Arjun Singh, he says. I am here to collect blood for the test you requested. I ask him to wait at the door, not that he’s keen to step inside – he is as nervous as I am of contracting the dreaded virus. I decide to make small talk as he waits.

Arjun, 27, is a healthcare worker from Dr Lal PathLabs who criss-crosses Gurugram on his scooter several times a day collecting blood samples as the coronavirus rages through the city. That backpack, which probably weighs anywhere between 10 and 15 kgs,  contains the tools of his trade - gloves, masks, syringes, sanitiser, sample bottles and glass tubes and a PPE kit, which he wears if he has to visit a Covid patient.

How bad is it, really? I ask. I don’t follow the news, he says,  but since last year I’ve seen the number of samples I’m collecting rise to  20 – 22 a day from just five or six samples earlier. That’s almost a 250 per cent increase.

That enormous surge in work means Arjun must plan his day meticulously, else the samples he collects can spoil. He receives all his bookings through an app on his phone and once he thinks he’s reached his limit for the day he sets about charting his course. It almost like he has the map of the city in his head – a map that tells him the most efficient route to cover all of the day’s patients even as he ensures that the samples he collects are deposited at the lab well in time.

His day begins at 7 am. After a hurried breakfast of tea and biscuits, Arjun sets off from his home in Gurugram’s Jyoti Park on his trusted two-wheeler. Every hour during that trek across the city he must deposit the samples he’s collected at any one of the 35 centres or franchises of Dr Lal PathLab. Between 1 pm and 1:30 pm, he takes a short break to eat a packed lunch he’s bought from a catering unit. It’s back on the road for him soon after, till he calls it a day at 7 pm.

Isn’t he scared about the virus? I ask. After all, he lives alone in his single-room apartment. He has no family that he can ask for help. His wife is back home in his village near Kanpur. “It’s what I signed up to do,” he says with a shrug.

He was nervous in the beginning when the cases started rising. He could see it in the number of requests he was getting. “When you’re alone in your room you have all kinds of worries – about your family, your job. I just couldn’t afford to fall ill. Who will look after me if I contract the virus?”

And so he worked out a protocol for himself. He would wear his mask and gloves throughout the day and bathe and disinfect his clothes as soon as he got back home. That would keep him safe. The rest was in God’s hands.

Arjun holds a BSc degree from  Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University in Kanpur. He worked there in Airtel’s marketing department for two years before deciding to move to Delhi four years ago. He joined the logistics team at Dr Lal PathLab. Later, a senior at work told him about a diploma that the company offered in Medical Laboratory Technology. He decided to enrol and for the next two years, he studied during the day and worked at night. From a starting salary of Rs10,000 a month, Singh now earns close to Rs 30,000 a month. But that’s not all. A few months ago, he planned to dip into his life savings to spend Rs 4 lakh and become a franchise partner of the diagnostic centre at Gurguram’s Vyapar Kendra. “Yes, I could have saved that money. But what if tomorrow I can’t do what I’m doing today?” he says.

Arjun has had no respite since the start of the pandemic. His work surged along with the virus. He’s been through bouts of extreme fatigue but each time he tested for Covid19 – he’s had four tests so far – he was told it was just exhaustion from work. But he can’t afford time off. Lockdowns don’t apply to him. “How will people who are really sick, get treated if they can’t get their test done? I owe it to them,” he says.

At his home in Kanpur, his family worries about him. His wife, who he married a year and a half ago, begs him to quit his job. He convinces her that he is being careful, that there is nothing to worry about. Work has to go on because they have a future to think about.

Arjun says he can manage his family’s stress even though they are so far away. With some convincing, they’re usually pacified. But what he finds particularly tough is dealing with unhappy customers.

People are on edge these days, he says. Showing up a few minutes late to collect samples means an angry customer ready to file a complaint. Sometimes he has had to even deal with abusive clients. A few days ago, a patient booked a collection appointment online and, in the process, probably entered his age incorrectly. Arjun was blamed for the error; the patient even complained about him. “Everybody is in a bad mood these days. What to do? These aren’t normal times. I just have to put up with it,” he says.

Sometimes people either lie or even conceal the fact that they have a Covid positive patient at home. “I get to know from their behaviour if anyone in the family has Covid even if they do not mention it while booking the appointment,” he says. Ideally, anyone booking a home sample collection must inform the healthcare worker so they can come fully protected. Arjun has realised that people can be quite unmindful of the harm they can cause to others.

But there are generous people too - people who understand the sacrifice he is making and will offer him a cup of tea or a glass of water. “But I do not have the time for that now. Also, I am afraid. I carry my water. I don’t want to be Covid positive.”