MUMBAI: A few days before Ramzan Eid, Shaheen Jamadar’s phone started buzzing non-stop. A bunch of people from Dharavi were calling up to inquire where she had disappeared. It was festival time and they needed rations and clothes that she had been organising for them through an NGO ever since the lockdown began.
Jamadar, 38, had tested positive for Covid and had been hospitalised 12 days ago. But the fact that people wouldn’t be able to celebrate Eid kept gnawing at her and she got to work from her hospital bed. When the moon was sighted on Thursday night, ration kits had already reached the 170 families that had approached Jamadar for help.
Their loved ones died from Covid. They are left pondering what might have been
What if SOS calls hadnât gone unanswered? What if there was a better hospital? What if oxygen was available like water?
Ram Prasad Koli and his wife.|Photo courtesy Ajay Koli
As the Covid pandemic batters India, healthcare systems are collapsing and governments are proving unequal to the challenge,
forcing people desperate for help to turn to social media. In the past few weeks, Twitter has been flooded with SOS calls for oxygen, medicines and hospital beds. Many calls have been answered by volunteer and civil society groups, but quite a few have been in vain with the patient dying before help could be arranged. Away from the gaze of social media, similar stories abound, of surviving family members wondering what might have been if they acted differently, if the healthcare system wasnât so decrepit and inadequate, if, as one grieving relative put it, oxygen was available like water as it sho
Food security suffers as donor fatigue affects Covid relief efforts by NGOs in India kashmirtimes.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kashmirtimes.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dr. Neha Lall The first case of the novel COVID19 virus was reported in India on the 30th of January and on 22nd of March the first Janta curfew was announced. From 25th of March onwards, different phases of lockdown have been implemented in India. The rapid spread of the virus and the sudden announcements…