Thursday
19th Dec 2024
Dhivehi Edition
Kathrin and her partner.
Kathrin Schuler, a Swiss software engineer based in the United Kingdom, took a 10-day diving trip to the Maldives with her partner, Roger. Schuler wrote about the difficulties of quarantine in the Maldives in a nearly 3,000-word blog post which she published on Medium on January 22. She wrote that her post was "intended to help people do their research as they consider travelling to the Maldives during the COVID-19 pandemic".
Kathrin Schuler's nearly 4,000 word blog post describing her ordeal with the Health Protection Agency's mismanagement of their 17 days of quarantine
Eight days after they had arrived in the Maldives, they had seen all they wanted to see: "numerous sharks, manta rays, eagle rays, and even the rare whale shark". As they prepared to return home, two of the passengers on their route to Dubai tested positive for COVID-19. At that point, wrote Schuler, they began their "journey into the unknown of Maldivian government regulations and quarantine requirements".
They were informed that they would not be able to return home, and that they would have to wait until the Health Protection Agency "sorted out the paperwork and had people transferred to a quarantine facility".
A day and a half later, the HPA had stated that they would be quarantined for a period of 14 days at Fun Island Resort and Spa. According to Schuler, they were required to pay USD$ 75 per person per day of the quarantine (a total of USD$ 2,184 per couple, including 3% credit-card tax). Schuler writes that they never got a receipt.
Fun Island Resort and Spa is a subsidiary company of Villa Shipping and Trading Company Pvt Ltd, and it is jointly-owned by Jumhooree Party leader Qasim Ibrahim and several members of his family. His son, Ibrahim Siyad Qasim, is the Managing Director of Fun Island Resort and Spa Pvt Ltd. The Jumhooree Party is part of the ruling Coalition.
Schuler writes that none of the tourists who had been in contact with the positive case were tested.
Maldives National Defence Force servicepeople in PPE handled them and had them examined by a physician. The physician "was rather surprised" when he found out that they had not been tested. "However, he wasn't able to answer when we'd able to get some tests either", Schuler wrote.
They were assigned their rooms at 9pm that night. Schuler included photographs of the room that they had been assigned. The assignments were "directly followed by shock and tears from several people", wrote Schuler. "The rooms were full of ants and anything else that crawls, and the bathroom was covered in mould. The floors were covered in dust and dirt and many mattresses had bed bugs. There was no soap, body wash, or hand disinfectant ("We ran out" they said) and only one roll of toilet paper. Is this really a place to keep people with a respiratory illness?" she wrote.
The MNDF commander present at Fun Island was "equally shocked" at the state of the rooms as "[the MNDF] were assured that [the rooms were] deep cleaned" before their arrival. They were given bleach and insect-killer for the night.
The next day, the medical team sent them a link through WhatsApp asking them to pay USD$ 70 for their PCR tests. They did not get a receipt for the payment.
The results of three of their PCR tests were sent to the manager of the boat that they had stayed on, not to them personally. Later, the medical team called each of the quarantined guests individually to give them their results. There were 19 positives, 4 negatives, and 1 inconclusive among them. On the evening of January 1, they received word that they would be allowed to leave on January 13.
In the afternoon of January 2, the medical team informed the tourists that they would be quarantined until 14 January. "Most of us had rebooked our flights, with the assumption that we could leave on the 13th", wrote Schuler. "We were angry and confused, but most of all, we felt lost. The rules seemed to keep changing and there was nobody who could tell us what was happening and what the process was."
At this point, they had not received any official documents confirming that they had to stay in quarantine.
Schuler and two others who had been tested negative began developing symptoms. Their requests to the medical team for a retest were ignored. They contacted the HPA and their embassies. The medical team said that they had not heard from any higher authority and that they could not retest "until their higher authority permits them to do so".
Later that day, some of the tourists were sent a PDF via WhatsApp with an official quarantine order. "The documents were full of errors: Misspelled names, wrong dates of birth, and incomplete or just plain wrong passport numbers. None of the people who tested negative received a quarantine notice", wrote Schuler.
When other tourists began developing more serious symptoms, such as high fever and chest-tightening, no medical check-ups had been done on them, and "none of [them] were asked by the medical team how [they] were feeling".
On January 4, Schuler received her quarantine notice. The notice was back-dated to December 30, 2020 and had mistakenly claimed that the Swiss national was from "Swaziland". Schuler wrote that she and her partner "decided that it will be easier to explain to the insurance that HPA made a mistake rather than trying to get it changed at that point".
Three of the tourists who had tested negative were retested, and all three tests came back positive on January 6. They were not given any information as to whether or not their quarantine would be restarted from the date of their positive test.
The medical staff stationed on Fun Island were not at all capable of handling emergencies related to COVID-19 or its symptoms. On January 7, Dirk, one of the tourists, fainted after having run a high fever for the past four days, and he was now struggling to breathe. His next-door neighbour, Wasan, ran to the medical centre to get the doctor's attention. "The doctor and the nurse made their way to his room and seemed rather puzzled about what to do", wrote Schuler. The doctor had not been informed that Dirk had been running a high fever, even though that the tourists had informed the other doctor on staff about it before. The medical centre did not have any ventilators on site to deal with the patient.
Dirk had to be taken to hospital in Male via a speed-boat. Another patient, a 72-year-old, also had to be taken to hospital after developing a fever of 40 degrees Celsius.
The medical team only began to run regular assessments of the tourists starting on January 8, which was day 9 of their quarantine.
Schuler wrote that Dirk returned to them on the 15th day of the quarantine. The hospital in Male released him from hospital, but to be released from quarantine he was told that he would "have to go back to Fun Island (via a 400$ speedboat) to be released from quarantine and then go back to the airport (via a 400$ speedboat). However, when he arrived, he was informed by the medical team that since he had tested positive in the hospital, he will have to stay for another 7 days".
The hospital, possibly IGMH, had refused all communication from Dirk's insurance to pay for the cost of his treatment and the hospital insisted that Dirk pay the fees himself. They said that he would not be released from hospital if he did not pay.
The tourists were released from their quarantine on Fun Island on January 16.
Schuler did write that not everybody she interacted during her ordeal on Fun Island were incompetent and unhelpful. She wrote that "commander Azim" of the MNDF "did everything to help us. He and his team were very responsive on WhatsApp and organised cleaning supplies, dish soap, toothpaste, and even duvets for us". Likewise, she described an HPA employee, Lim, as being "by far the only competent and helpful person we spoke to from [the HPA], too bad we only found out about her at the end of our trip".
The Health Protection Agency has come under heavy criticism from locals, as well, for their perceived incompetence and for their rules that seem to keep changing, to borrow from Schuler's words. The full breadth of the government's continuing mismanagement of the COVID-19 outbreak is yet to be fully seen.
Later that day, some of the tourists were sent a PDF via WhatsApp with an official quarantine order. "The documents were full of errors: Misspelled names, wrong dates of birth, and incomplete or just plain wrong passport numbers. None of the people who tested negative received a quarantine notice", wrote Schuler.
When other tourists began developing more serious symptoms, such as high fever and chest-tightening, no medical check-ups had been done on them, and "none of [them] were asked by the medical team how [they] were feeling".
On January 4, Schuler received her quarantine notice. The notice was back-dated to December 30, 2020 and had mistakenly claimed that the Swiss national was from "Swaziland". Schuler wrote that she and her partner "decided that it will be easier to explain to the insurance that HPA made a mistake rather than trying to get it changed at that point".
Three of the tourists who had tested negative were retested, and all three tests came back positive on January 6. They were not given any information as to whether or not their quarantine would be restarted from the date of their positive test.
The medical staff stationed on Fun Island were not at all capable of handling emergencies related to COVID-19 or its symptoms. On January 7, Dirk, one of the tourists, fainted after having run a high fever for the past four days, and he was now struggling to breathe. His next-door neighbour, Wasan, ran to the medical centre to get the doctor's attention. "The doctor and the nurse made their way to his room and seemed rather puzzled about what to do", wrote Schuler. The doctor had not been informed that Dirk had been running a high fever, even though that the tourists had informed the other doctor on staff about it before. The medical centre did not have any ventilators on site to deal with the patient.
Dirk had to be taken to hospital in Male via a speed-boat. Another patient, a 72-year-old, also had to be taken to hospital after developing a fever of 40 degrees Celsius.
The medical team only began to run regular assessments of the tourists starting on January 8, which was day 9 of their quarantine.
Schuler wrote that Dirk returned to them on the 15th day of the quarantine. The hospital in Male released him from hospital, but to be released from quarantine he was told that he would "have to go back to Fun Island (via a 400$ speedboat) to be released from quarantine and then go back to the airport (via a 400$ speedboat). However, when he arrived, he was informed by the medical team that since he had tested positive in the hospital, he will have to stay for another 7 days".
The hospital, possibly IGMH, had refused all communication from Dirk's insurance to pay for the cost of his treatment and the hospital insisted that Dirk pay the fees himself. They said that he would not be released from hospital if he did not pay.
The tourists were released from their quarantine on Fun Island on January 16.
Schuler did write that not everybody she interacted during her ordeal on Fun Island were incompetent and unhelpful. She wrote that "commander Azim" of the MNDF "did everything to help us. He and his team were very responsive on WhatsApp and organised cleaning supplies, dish soap, toothpaste, and even duvets for us". Likewise, she described an HPA employee, Lim, as being "by far the only competent and helpful person we spoke to from [the HPA], too bad we only found out about her at the end of our trip".
The Health Protection Agency has come under heavy criticism from locals, as well, for their perceived incompetence and for their rules that seem to keep changing, to borrow from Schuler's words. The full breadth of the government's continuing mismanagement of the COVID-19 outbreak is yet to be fully seen.