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About 50 Filipinos who tested positive for coronavirus disease in Saudi Arabia have allegedly been staying in a quarantine facility without health personnel looking after them and with insufficient and delayed provision of medicine from their recruitment agency, the Daily Manila Shimbun learned.

According to a Filipina worker, one of those quarantined, symptomatic and asymptomatic patients have reportedly been staying in the same room where social distancing could be difficult to observe.

The OFW said she did not know if the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh was aware of their situation.

The worker, who is in her 30s, said their Saudi-based agency was only apparently forced to bring them to a hotel, which serves as their isolation facility when the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health ordered their swab tests, otherwise the business would be closed.

"We are the ones providing for our own food, also our medicine because the medicine that they (agency) provided came only five days ago and yet not enough," said the overseas Filipino worker, who is an on call residential cleaner.

She said the management of the hotel might not be aware that they are COVID-19 positive individuals because their driver allegedly told them not to tell the hotel staff.

During the interview, the Filipina was on her sixth day of isolation.

Unlike in the Philippines where quarantine period takes about 14 days, she claimed based from what she saw from other patients, it took only 10 days.

She alleged that after 10 days, even if the individuals still show minor symptoms, their agency would force them to return to work even without a new swab test to check if they are negative from COVID-19.

"They are not allowed to go back to quarantine (facility), they are again mixed with those negative (individuals)," she said.

Prior to their transfer to the hotel, she said she and about a hundred other female Filipino workers have been staying in a building, which serves as their quarters. All the over 50 OFWs who got infected with COVID-19 are living in that place.

"Instead of you getting relaxed (while in isolation), you will be stressed because of what is happening. It seems that you won't die with COVID, but because of stress," she lamented.

The OFW said they could not complain to their local recruitment agency in Makati City because it is reportedly closed.

She was not sure if during their stay in quarantine facility, they could still receive their salary, which they usually get during the end of the month.

She expressed hope that the manning agency in Saudi Arabia would do something to improve the situation.

She also hoped that their agency would give the patients like her enough rest before deploying them again to work. Celerina Monte/DMS