A hospital in Bhagalpur, Bihar, July 2020. | Danish Siddiqui/Reuters
On April 25 when 25-year-old Syed Ali’s oxygen levels dipped perilously low to 78 percent, his family in Indarwa Abdullah, a village in Bihar’s Gopalganj district, rushed him to the district hospital. He was put on oxygen therapy, but it was not helping. He needed a ventilator, the doctors said.
The Gopalganj district hospital has three ventilators that it received from the Central government last September. But seven months later, as Bihar battles a deadly surge of Covid-19, with daily caseload this week increasing to more than three times the peak seen last year, these life-saving devices are little more than furniture here.
India
Maharajganj
Bihar
Darbhanga
Siwan
Sitamarhi
Kaimur
Madhya-pradesh
Patna
Champaran-east
Madhubani
Sheohar