Hospitals and health workers overwhelmed by the tsunami of COVID cases

‘Corona will lose and Gujarat will win the war against the pandemic with joint efforts of government and religious heads.’ (Gujarat Govt press note)

Hospitals and health workers overwhelmed by the tsunami of COVID cases
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AJ Prabal

From 20 thousand cases a day reported in February to 150,000 cases a day in April have overwhelmed the creaking public health systems in the cities. While nobody has a clear idea of what is happening in the countryside and smaller towns, reports from everywhere are scary.

“The media show patients lying on the floor in hospitals. But what can we do? From where do we get the beds? We have no beds, no oxygen, no spare ventilators and believe me, we are all tired. How long will this go on? How long can we sustain,” wails an agitated doctor.

Another doctor confirms what has been suspected for long, that people are just not being tested. There is a global shortage of testing kits and therefore instructions are that the kits be used judiciously. So if doctors can avoid testing, they avoid it. Several dead bodies were brought to the hospital where this doctor works. They all had respiratory trouble, the relatives informed. But the relatives were not tested though there was strong suspicion that they could be infected. These untested people are going out and spreading the virus, said the doctor unwilling to reveal his identity.

Another doctor fumes that he has stopped taking calls on his mobile. “How do I tell people I have known that I am in no position to help or provide their ailing relative a bed with oxygen,” he wonders aloud. Scores of doctors, and health workers, despite having taken both doses of the vaccine, have been infected by COVID-19. Still they and the post graduate medical students are expected to work round the clock.

“Hospitals are now working 24 hours,” a medical student mimics a political leader as saying. There is palpable anger directed at politicians, who, health workers feel, have let them down. They have been guilty of irresponsible conduct, of allowing large congregations; they failed to communicate to the people the gravity of the pandemic and the threats and they themselves have not been following COVID protocols, says a nursing staff, “but we are bearing the brunt of their misconduct”.

The pandemic has generated an exodus of the rich. While a Morgan Stanley report in 2018 claimed that 23,000 Indian millionaires had migrated since 2014, the Global Wealth Migration Review report released recently held that 5000 Indian millionaires had left the country in 2020 alone.

Hospitals and health workers overwhelmed by the tsunami of COVID cases

But while the rich and the powerful seek sanctuaries abroad, where they can avail of better education, healthcare and law and order, other Indians are bearing the brunt of the failure to ramp up health infrastructure.

India has among the lowest rates of testing in the world and the prevailing feeling among health workers is that Indian cities are just not ready to handle the crisis. “If the steep rise in cases is not arrested soon, even the functioning hospitals are going to collapse,” they warn

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