CASE STUDIES
TRAGEDY AFTER RETURNING HOME
Suraj Yadav, 38, left his village Deogaon in Azamgarh district in east Uttar Pradesh for Mumbai in October last year after the decline in the Covid-19 cases and the relaxation in the nationwide lockdown announced by the central government a few months earlier.
On April 21, when the Maharashtra government announced strict curbs to fight the surge in Covid cases, Yadav returned home. On April 25, he complained of fever and breathing problem. His family members gave him a drug prescribed by the local doctor. Nevertheless, his condition deteriorated, and he died on Wednesday (April 28). The family members cremated him in a field on the outskirts of the village.
FALLING PREY TO APATHY
Chhote Lal Shahu, resident of Dumri Khas village in Gorakhpur district, called the district control room after his wife Radhika Devi was down with fever and had breathing problems. Shahu was told that an ambulance would reach his house within an hour. He waited desperately, reminded the control room but there was no response. He rushed his wife to a private clinic where she died. He carried the body to a field located near a temple to cremate the body. The villagers objected and informed the police. The policemen told Shahu to cremate the body in a field outside the village.
FARMER DIES WITHOUT PROPER TREATMENT
Kamal Kunwar, a farmer of Mirzapur village in Jalaun district, was down with fever for four days. Eventually, the family members hired a tractor to take him to a government hospital in Orai town, the district headquarters of Jalaun. As Kunwar could not get admission in government or private hospitals, the family members returned to the village where he breathed his last on April 29.
His brother Jai Kunwar said, “After returning to the village I took my brother to a clinic run by a quack. No sample test was conducted, nor the district administration supplied the medical kit for Covid patients.”
Social activist Sanjay Singh, who works in the Bundelkhand region, said the number of sample tests and vaccinations were low in the rural areas. His organization, Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan, has launched an awareness campaign in the rural areas of the region to motivate the migrants to get their sample tested and take the Covid vaccine. The Covid protocol was being violated during the movement of migrants in vehicles, he said.
FRANTIC EFFORT IN VAIN
The family members of Balmukund Dubey, resident of Mandwa village in Siddharth Nagar, rushed him to the community health centre in Shohratgarh town after Dubey complained of breathing problem. The gates of the health centre were closed, and the ambulance remained stranded at the gates. His wife and uncle started searching for a medical officer to admit the patient. Unable to trace the doctor, the duo returned to the ambulance to find Dubey dead. Medical officer Dr PK Verma said the family members of Dubey did not inform the medical officer that the patient was critical.