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