India Covid-19: Deadly second wave spreads from cities to small towns
The pandemic has now firmly gripped many smaller cities, towns and villages where the devastation is largely under-reported. Rajesh Soni spent eight hours taking his father from one hospital to another in a tuk-tuk in Kota district in the northern state of Rajasthan on Tuesday. He couldn't get an ambulance and the rickety vehicle was his only option. At 5pm, he decide to end his search for a hospital bed as his father's condition was deteriorating. He then "left everything to fate" and came home.
"I am giving him medicines at home, but I am not sure
that he will survive. We have been left to die on the streets," Rajesh
said. He says several private hospitals even "conned" him and took
money to do tests, only to tell him later to take his father away as there were
no beds. "I am not a wealthy person. I spent whatever I had to pay the
tuk-tuk driver and to hospitals. Now I am going to borrow some money to get an
oxygen cylinder at home."
Why second Covid
wave is devastating India
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Such stories have become common in Delhi, the worst affected city in India, but similar accounts are now coming in from smaller cities and towns across the country….
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56913047
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