India’s COVID Martyrs

Posted on by Thor

In India on May 16, 2021 fifty doctors died in a single day. 269 doctors have died in the second wave of the virus in India. Last year, 736 doctors had lost their lives during the first wave. The highest number of fatalities have been reported from Bihar (69) followed by Uttar Pradesh (34) and Delhi (27). Only 3% of the doctors who died were fully vaccinated.

Five months into India’s vaccination drive, only 66 per cent of India’s healthcare workers have been fully vaccinated.

Dr. Jayesh Lele, the General Secretary of The Indian Medical Association, (IMA), told NDTV, “It is very unfortunate that we lost 50 doctors yesterday across India and 244 in the second wave since the first week of April”.

“Secondly we want to highlight that doctors are understaffed and overworked. They sometimes work for 48 hours at a stretch without any rest. This adds to the viral load and they ultimately succumb to the infection. The government needs to take measures to boost the healthcare workforce,” he added.

While the The Indian Medical Association (IMA) says that a thousand doctors have died due to Covid so far, the actual numbers may be far higher. The IMA only keeps a record of its nearly 350,000 members. India, however, has more than 1 million 200 thousand doctors. The former president of IMA, Dr. K.K. Aggarwal died on May 17, 2021 from COVID-19. The doctor was infected despite being vaccinated.

Doctors and nurses who are on the front line of the battle against the virus are being stigmatized in India. There are cases of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals, being shunned by others for fear of being infected. This includes the threat of being evicted from their own apartments and general ostracism. People are frightened and superstitious. “They recognize us with our lab coats and stethoscopes. Many doctors have been asked to vacate their rented homes by their landlords as they believe that doctors staying at their houses may make them more susceptible to Covid-19,” a junior doctor at Hyderabad’s MGM Hospital told The New Indian Express newspaper on condition of anonymity.

 

 

No Oxygen in India

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People in India are dying gasping for oxygen. Hospitals are full so many are turned away and some dye at hospital entrances. Even empty oxygen cylinders are hard to find. With more than 300,000 coronavirus cases a day in India for the past two weeks, medical supply chains have broken.

NPR reported that On May 4, 2021, as many as 24 patients died after the Chamarajanagar district hospital in the southern state of Karnataka ran out of oxygen. On May 1, 2021, 12 COVID-19 patients died at Delhi‘s Batra Hospital after an oxygen delivery was delayed by just 90 minutes. Several more such incidents have been reported across the country.

The Allahabad High Court in northern India on Tuesday declared that hospital deaths from oxygen shortages amount to “genocide.”This humanitarian nightmare is being called callus criminal negligence.

A Sikh house of worship in Delhi allows people to come sit in front of the temple where they can breath free oxygen. Another organization has converted empty buses into oxygen waiting areas. The buses are parked in front of hospitals to help people who can not get in.  Many other countries including the US have pour aid into India. Including empty cylinders and oxygen concentrators. On April 28, 2021 the U.S. dispatched to the Indian capital its first shipment, which included more than 400 oxygen cylinders and 960,000 rapid-testing kits. Much of that aid became mired in customs queues. The aid was still not distributed a week later.

India has banned the use of oxygen for industries and is diverting most of it for medical use. The problem is distribution. Liquid medical oxygen is flammable and in most cases can’t be flown. It has to move by road, rail or sea freight. Many oxygen-tanker drivers got sick with COVID-19 right at the moment when oxygen demand skyrocketed. Officials had to arrange replacement drivers, and it took time. According to the Delhi government, hospitals are asking for close to 1,000 metric tons of liquid oxygen per day on average, but only 40% of that is being supplied. The biggest problem is that government bureaucracy has slowed things down.