Ezhil Arasi (left) and Ranjith Kumar. The pandemic kept her from her pregnancy checkups. Their baby was born with an intestinal blockage that required surgery and died during the procedure. Doctors told Ranjith that if his wife had been examined regularly during her pregnancy, there could have been a different outcome.
Ranjith Kumar
Ezhil Arasi Kumar was 8 weeks pregnant and due for her first prenatal visit — which would include an ultrasound scan.
But she didn't go.
Her appointment had been scheduled around the time when India's 21-day lockdown began, with little notice, on the eve of March 24, 2020.
Not a single private hospital was open in Madurai, a city in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where they lived. "Everything had shut down overnight," says her husband, Ranjith. Public transport ground to a halt. The government-run hospitals in the city were overwhelmed with COVID patients and, unlike private facilities, didn't take appointments. The prospect of waiting for hours to see a doctor in a pandemic caused the couple anxiety. So they decided they could wait for the checkup.