ISLAMABAD: A number of alarming cases are being reported from different states of India where the hospitals staff were turning away pregnant women with Covid 19 symptoms and refusing to attend to the newborns who required immediate treatment due to certain health complications.
They country’s Covid 19 cases crossed half million mark with around 16,000 deaths and daily caseload of 18,500. The apathy and inhuman treatment led to a number of deaths which also posed a big question mark on the working of health sector in India, which is now crumbling under the increasing number of coronavirus infected patients.
A 30-year-old woman in the eighth month of her pregnancy had died in an ambulance after eight hospitals in India either referred her to another facility as she showed symptoms of Covid-19 or cited lack of beds.
The woman and her family were on the road for 13 hours when she breathed her last. According to the Times of India report published earlier in the month, this is not the first time patients have found themselves being turned away by hospitals in Noida while Covid-19 protocols are in place.
On May 24, a pregnant woman was allegedly denied treatment by the Sector 30 district hospital and told to go to a hospital in Ghaziabad, as she lived in Khoda, which is sealed.
In another case the next day, a newborn died after failing to get admission in an NICU for seven hours, even as his father went to at least four hospitals, including the District Hospital.
The episode jolted the Noida administration. Narendra Bhooshan, nodal officer for Covid-19 response in Noida, admitted this was a growing concern.
Neelam Kumari, a resident of Ghaziabad’s Khoda Colony, and her family shuttled from one hospital — first in an auto and then an ambulance — beginning around 6am on Friday.
When she began experiencing labour pain, Neelam’s husband Bijendra, who works in the maintenance department of a media firm, his brother Shailendra Kumar, an auto driver, and his wife Sushma rushed her to ESIC Hospital in Noida’s Sector 24.
ESIC hospital took her in for some time and gave oxygen, and then referred her to the District Hospital in Sector 30. But the staff there didn’t admit her and told us that since we had come from Khoda, which is a containment zone, we should return and get treatment there.
The family then took Neelam to Shivalik Hospital in Sector-51, which said she was serious and should be taken to a ‘better hospital’.
Around 11am, Neelam’s family took her to Fortis Noida, but again hit a wall. “The staff said they did not have a vacant bed and a ventilator, and asked us to take her somewhere else as her condition was serious, Shailendra said. They next went to Jaypee Hospital in Sector 128 but could not get her admitted there either. Pointing out that Neelam had Covid-19 symptoms and should be taken to Sharda Hospital or Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in Greater Noida, both designated Covid facilities, the family claimed the hospital sent them away.
“We drove to Sharda since it was closer than GIMS. There, we were told she needed to be tested for Covid first. They charged us Rs 4,500 for it, but even before the test, referred her to GIMS, saying they did not have a vacant bed. We tried to call an ambulance through 108 but did not get any.
We hired a private ambulance for Rs 5,800 since Neelam required oxygen support and took her to GIMS,” Shailendra told TOI. But GIMS, he added, claimed it did not have vacant beds. On the brink of losing hope, the family said it took Neelam to Max Hospital in Ghaziabad’s Vaishali, which also allegedly refused admission.
They headed for GIMS again, but by the time they reached, Neelam had expired in the ambulance. Shailendra said. “What has happened to our family should not happen with anyone else. We will write to the chief minister about this,” Shailendra added. A report by Aljazeera Tv cited the ordeals of Pradeep Kumar whose wife was admitted to a government-run hospital in India’s capital for treatment of the COVID-19 disease, it took two days before she was able to see a doctor. Though India’s leaders have promised coronavirus testing and care for all who need it, regardless of income, treatment options are as stratified and unequal as the country itself.
Care ranges from crowded wards at public hospitals that some worry will make them sicker than if they stayed at home to spacious suites at private hospitals that only the wealthy can afford. The report further said the system has been chronically underfunded, meaning government hospitals are overburdened and patients often face days-long waits for even basic treatments.
Epidemics usually are good mirrors of society and country,” said Pratik Chakrabarti, a history of science professor at the University of Manchester, adding that this one “has exposed how precarious people’s lives are” in India.
The pandemic has hit India’s poor the hardest, from the disease itself to the economic and social impact of a recently lifted nationwide lockdown, said Ramanan Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist and economist who directs the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington.
“The lockdown primarily protected the rich because they could afford to stay home. The poor couldn’t so bore the brunt of the disease,” he said. “This is just a grossly unfair situation.”–Agencies
