A 43-year-old man who had been found wandering in Salt Lake after he tested positive for Covid and was taken to a safe house in Barasat on Friday was put on oxygen support on Saturday, his brother said.
“He has high fever and breathlessness. The doctor who checked on him decided to put him on oxygen support. He told us that my brother is extremely weak,” the brother said.
The man, who lost his job of a parking attendant during the lockdown, had been without food for the past couple of days. He had survived on a loaf of bread and a laddu he bought from a tea stall near the place where he was found lying under the elevated Metro corridor in Duttabad, his brother said.
“The man is quite weak and he had complained of difficulty in breathing. His oxygen levels are below normal and we have put him on oxygen support,” a doctor at the safe house said.
The man had wandered in Salt Lake for three days before he was found under the elevated Metro corridor on Friday.
He was afraid to go home because of his elderly parents. He has said that he hadn’t received any call or instruction on what to do from the authorities.
He was taken to the safe house after some Duttabad residents alerted the fire and emergency services minister, Sujit Bose, and local councillor Nirmal Dutta. They got him transported to the facility in a government ambulance.