NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Two men wearing oxygen masks share a bed at a government hospital in India’s capital, New Delhi, victims of the country’s growing COVID-19 crisis.
According to official data, the highest in the world, according to official reports, daily infections exceeded 200,000 on Thursday earlier this year, as reported by less than 10,000 new cases daily.
At Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP), one of the largest COVID-only facilities in India with more than 1,500 beds, a flow of ambulances transported patients to the overflowing victim room this Thursday.
Some also arrived on buses and three-wheeled self-reports.
The youngest patient was a newborn baby.
“It simply came to our notice then. We are already working at full capacity, ”said the hospital’s medical director, Suresh Kumar.
Of about 54 initial beds, the hospital already has more than 300 for patients with critical COVID-19. Even that is not enough.
Unrelated patients share beds, while the bodies of the recently deceased have been left outside the ward before being taken to the funeral home.
“Today we have 158 incomes in Lok Nayak alone,” Kumar said. Almost all were serious cases.
After imposing one of the tightest closures in the world for nearly three months last year, the Indian government relaxed almost all sidewalks in early 2021, although many regions have now introduced localized restrictions.
Kumar, of LNJP, said the new fast-spreading variants that avoid testing add to the burden, as well as human behavior when the country reopened.
“People don’t follow COVID guidelines,” he said. “They’re just careless.”
Outside the hospital funeral home, weeping relatives gathered in the hot sun to wait for the bodies of loved ones to be released.
Prashant Mehra, 40, said he had to pay an agent for preferential treatment before his 90-year-old grandfather could be admitted to hospital. The hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his observations.
Mehra said the effort made little difference in the end.
“He died after six or seven hours,” he said. “We have already asked for a refund of our money.”
Reports from the Danish Siddiqui, Alasdair Pal and Sunil Kataria; Edited by Mike Collett-White