India’s sick and their saviours
Civil society steps up as government lags
MUMBAI • Sandwiched between a rooftop bar and an arcade of clothing shops, the small call centre does not look like the front line in the fight against India’s devastating COVID-19 epidemic. However, once the doors swing open, there is a flurry of activity inside the aptly named “war room” in Mumbai, India’s financial capital.
With the health system partially collapsed, a battalion of volunteers here handle up to 500 calls a day from desperate residents searching for hospital admission, essential medicines, oxygen and even a crematorium that has not been overwhelmed.
India’s COVID-19 second wave shows no sign of abating. Yesterday, the country recorded a record-breaking 386,452 new infections — the ninth-consecutive day the number exceeded 300,000 — while 3,498 more people had died. India’s current daily death rates are thought to be a gross underestimate as some put the figures at 20 times the official toll due to under-reporting and a lack of COVID-19 testing, particularly in rural areas.
In the western state of Gujarat, crematoria furnaces melted due to overuse, while in Delhi, those usually used for disposal of dogs are being repurposed to cope with the increased demand.
Indian civil society, which has long faced suppression and funding cuts under the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is stepping up to bravely fill the gap. Vijay Goray, 36, picks up his phone and earnestly begins to jot down the key details of the caller on the line: age 48, has tested COVID-19 positive, breathlessness, oxygen levels sunk to a concerning 81 per cent.
Goray, who usually works in advertising, passes on the details from the call to a colleague who will contact local hospitals in search of an ICU bed.
“Two days back, I had a call from a patient at Holy Family Hospital here in Mumbai and they desperately needed plasma for any chance of survival,” says Shams Khan, 24, pen and paper in hand, who sits alongside Goray in the war room. “We sent a volunteer to the neighbourhood of Kalyan to collect the plasma and the patient has now recovered and normalized, despite only having a 10-percent chance of survival.”
The centre is the brainchild of Zeeshan Siddique, a politician belonging to India’s opposition Congress Party, who reacted after he was inundated with messages on social media from critical patients.
The health-care system has imploded right across India, with facilities unable to cope with the sheer number of cases believed to be driven by new, more-contagious variants.
The situation is particularly bad in Delhi, India’s capital. “Every three minutes there is an ambulance arriving at our hospital and we are having to turn them away because we are at capacity,” said Dr. Sumit Ray, medical superintendent at Holy Family Hospital.
“There are seas of patients coming in, no beds, and patients are dying on the way between hospitals. It is just out of control.”
The Modi government failed to scale up the country’s beleaguered health-care system when cases dipped earlier this year and Indians have now been left to fend for themselves.
There is a widespread scarcity of oxygen in hospitals while this week many Indian states, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, reported deaths due to sudden shortages. Thousands more have died outside hospitals and in their homes, awaiting admission.
Despite India receiving assistance from 40 countries, many Indians are being forced to spend more than 1,000 pounds ($1,700) to purchase an oxygen cylinder on the black market.
Medicines, including remdesivir and tocilizumab, are also being sold at more than 20 times their usual market price, while some criminals are taking advantage of the desperation to sell counterfeit products.
“Open fraud is going on and there is no system in India right now,” said Dr. Harjit Singh Bhatti, president of the Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum in Delhi.
“People are spending thousands of pounds to buy drugs like remdesivir and oxygen cylinders and they are getting duplicate drugs or empty cylinders … We, the people of India, are feeling like orphans.”
NGOS, staffed with young volunteers, many of whom joined after the death of a family member or close friend, are emerging across India’s capital in response to the thousands of SOS messages being posted on social media daily.
“People are looking for all kinds of medical assistance, from normal beds to oxygen and ICU beds and medicines such as remdesivir,” explains one young woman in Delhi working independently with 250 volunteers.
“In Delhi, we have a government app but it is not updated regularly and when you call the helplines, many go unanswered.”
The volunteer did not wish to be named as rumours continue to spread that those offering help on social media could be charged, as India’s government desperately tries to protect its image internationally.
“I wish our governments had stepped up and made sure people didn’t have to run around helter-skelter,” the volunteer said.
“When this ends, what kind of healing is there for people like us? It is really difficult when you are connected to a patient’s family and you hear they didn’t make it through. It is incredibly traumatic.”
With India not expected to reach the peak of this wave until the end of May, experts said the government should swallow its pride and work with civil society organizations on the ground to provide relief.
“Over the past seven years, and more starkly in the past few years, the government and politics have seen civil society as an adversary and brute state power has been used to intimidate activists and make it difficult for them to get funding, whether internationally or locally,” said Yamini Aiyar, director of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi think tank.
“We are in a situation where the government has abdicated all responsibility and we are being forced to save ourselves.”