As Sushil Kumar Srivastava's breathlessness worsened, his family bundled the 70-year-old into a car and drove him to a hospital in the capital of India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, where he tested positive for the coronavirus.
A man waits to get an oxygen tanker filled for a Covid-19 patient, at a refill station in Allahabad in India.
Photo: AFP
After the private hospital turned the retired government official away because it didn't have any vacant beds, his son Ashish bought two oxygen cylinders and drove his father on a hunt for a hospital that could admit him.
"All the hospitals asked for a referral letter from the chief medical officer's (CMO) office," Ashish said, referring to the top healthcare official of the city of some 3.5 million people.