With A Gasp, They Left Us

Beware, experts warned last November, of a more virulent spell of the pandemic. Prepare for the eventuality, they advised, by stockpiling medical oxygen. Their admonition wasn’t heeded. Covid has been beaten back, promised the leaders in blithe assurance; the masses took their cue from this misplaced confidence. The dam broke in April, engulfing the country in crisis. Health infrastructure was overwhelmed, while one article, or rather its acute scarcity, stood as a visual shorthand for the tragic misery of the second wave: oxygen, and the weather-beaten cylinders that carry it. People gasped and gulped for breath; some did not make it, leaving near ones forever scarred by their final, painful hours. Here we narrate the stories of nine victims whose lives could have been saved by the oxygen they never received. Their last, anguished cries should be a deterrent against complacency.

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‘Mummy chali gayi’

Raman Duggal

Raman Duggal, a 54-year-old resident of Vivek Vihar, got her first jab of the Coronavirus vaccine on April 10. The very next day, she was down with fever, which the family took to be as a normal reaction to vaccination. After the symptoms continued for another week and the city and country was gripped by death and misery, her children, concerned now, tried to get her to a hospital. They were repulsed, as countless others were in those days of utter pandemonium, by that terse message: no beds are available. On April 17 they got  a bed in Gupta Multispeciality Hospital. She was kept in the normal ward for two days and then, as her oxygen levels plunged, was shifted to ICU. “Every day we used to get calls from the hospital, asking us to arrange oxygen,” her son Karan Duggal tells Outlook. “Both my sister and I were down with Covid and did all the running in search of oxygen cylinders.”

On the night of April 23, the hospital sent SOS messages to relatives of all patients, declaring that their oxygen reserve was about to run out. In vain did the Duggal family try all possible sources of oxygen. “In my overheated desperation, I didn’t realise that a new day had broken. The first words I spoke that morning was, ‘Mummy chali gayi’,” says Karan. Till today, the hospital hasn’t officially revealed the cause of Raman’s death. Of course, they never declared that it was due to the lack of oxygen.

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“My father, my sister and I keep hiding our pain from each other. We just don’t want the others to break down. But I don’t know for how long I will be able to bury my grief,” says Karan.

Life Equals Six Cylinders

Ravish Narayan

Life seemed sweet again for 46-year-old Ravish Narayan. His readymade garment shop was doing good business and he had procured a bank loan of Rs 1.20 crore last year to set up ano­ther shop in Patna. He was confident of quickly recovering last year’s lockdown losses after the state government allowed businesses to return to normality. The worst was behind us, thought Ravish, like so many others. Little did he foresee the gathering storm.

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“My husband got an RT-PCR test done on April 13 after he developed mild Covid symptoms,” says his wife Kavita. “A positive report came after two days. My elder son and I also tested positive.” Kavita says that they isolated themselves at home and started taking medicines immediately thereafter. “Everything was okay initially but his oxy­gen levels began to dip alarmingly after a few days. We tried to admit him to a hospital, but there was no bed available anywhere, including AIIMS, Patna. So we had to look for an oxygen cylinder for him at home.”

With most relatives, friends and neighbours keeping a distance from the family due to fear of contagion, finding an oxygen cylinder, which was by then a rare commodity, was a nightmarish experience. “Somehow we managed to buy a cylinder in black for Rs 30,000 and its regulator for Rs 3,000, but nobody in the family knew how to operate it,” says Kavita. “The nurse we had to call to fix it charged Rs 2,000 on every visit.”

But that wasn’t enough. Ravish’s condition deteriorated on April 20 and he had to be rushed to a private hospital. “The hospital agreed to admit him only if we filled a bond stating that we would arrange oxygen cylinders. We promised to do so and provided the cylinder we had bought earlier,” says Avinash Kumar, Ravish’s brother-in-law.

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The family, says Avinash, had to pay Rs 1.06 lakh to the hospital for four vials of Remdesivir injection, which failed to rev­ive him. “The hospital told us that given his condition, one cylinder was not eno­ugh; six were needed to ­ensure adequate flow of oxygen,” Kavita says. “They said 85 per cent of his lungs was infected and he needed oxygen ­immediately. We were told to either get the cylinders within two hours or take away the patient.”

That dire ultimatum hanging like a Damocles’ sword over them, the family tried everything, even scouring the black market. It was in vain. “When we could not get the cylinders, the hospital told us to take him away,” she says. Still aghast at the horror, Avinash recalls how Ravish was gasping for breath when he was being discharged from hospital. “We put him in an ambulance fitted with an oxygen cylinder and took him to Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH), the premier government-run hospital,” he says. “But he kept complaining of acute breathlessness on the way.”

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Though the family managed to get Ravish a bed in PMCH on April 23, an ICU slot remained elusive. “He desperately needed an ICU bed and ventilator. He kept languishing in the general Covid ward for hours, panting all through until he passed away,” Avinash says. “There was nobody to take care of a patient outside of the ICU. Ravish could have been saved had he got oxygen on time.”

The tragedy has left Kavita, a homemaker, and her two sons, both studying in a premier school, to fend for themselves. With shops gradually reopening in Bihar, she is bracing for a new challenge. She not only has to revive her husband’s business but also repay the bank loan. The ordeal, for her, lingers on.

Giridhar Jha

I cried aloud: ‘All of you are murderers’

Dr Ashok Kumar Amrohi

During the chaotic trough of the second wave, neglectful death didn’t spare the well-connected, with some of the most high-profile jobs in the country. Ashok Kumar Amrohi, a 65-year-old IFS officer and former Indian ambassador to Brunei, Mozambique and Algeria, lived in Gurgaon with his family. On April 21, he was running a fever when he suddenly started feeling breathless. After struggling for many hours, the family could finally arrange an oxygen cylinder, which saved the situation. However, within a couple of days, Amrohi’s oxygen level started plummeting again. Doctors advised immediate hospitalisation.

After exploring every other possibility, luck shone on April 25 when, through a source, the Amrohis were promised a bed in one of the best private hospitals in the country. It would be available around 8 pm the next day, they were told.

The family reached the hospital around half-an-hour early. The stage was set for the ­unfolding of a horrific tragedy. Yamini, Ashok Amrohi’s wife, tells Outlook, “‘They did not allow us to enter. Firstly, we were asked to wait until a Covid test was done. It took them over an hour to do the test. Meanwhile, my husband’s condition started deteriorating. He was so restless that even the oxygen cylinder we carried from home was not helping. He needed immediate medical attention.”

In a voice quivering with emotion, she continues, “Even after that, they didn’t let us in. They wanted us to first complete the entire admission procedure.” She speaks about the searingly painful sight of her son waiting in the admission queue for over five hours while his father writhed and gasped for breath. At one point, she herself ran into the hospital and begged the staff for at least first aid. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. “I was sobbing and begging them to let us in. I went inside thrice, but they didn’t seem to care. Meanwhile, my husband was losing his breath. I kept rubbing his chest and his hands. But his fingers started turning cold,” says Yamini, as tears roll down her cheeks.

The Amrohis were kept waiting for over five hours. “I went mad at their indifference. I cried aloud, ‘All of you are murderers.’ A person was dying at their door and nobody came,” she says. “While I was trying to comfort my ­husband, I saw my son waving at us. He came running. ‘The admission process is completed,’ he said. I turned back and saw my husband sitting still. His face had turned pale, his limbs cold. When the staff came with a stretcher, the doctor declared him dead,” Yamini sighs.

Hours after the demise of Ashok Kumar Amrohi, external affairs minister S. Jai­shankar tweeted to express ‘shock’ and ­offered his condolences. The tweet was seen by many as grotesque irony—considering Jaishankar’s tweets assuring the public of sufficient supply of oxygen and medical equipment to fight the pandemic. His statement calling the worldwide pillorying of the government’s utter failure to fight the second wave as ‘one-sided’ was dug up vis-à-vis the death of the IFS officer.

Mere words of consolation cannot pacify a distraught Yamini Amrohi, for an insistent question plagues her day and night: Why did authorities at one of our best hospitals ign­ore a person dying at their door? The ans­wer has to be wrenched out of the guilty party.

‘Do we get his ashes tested for Covid?’

Vijay Singh

They all remember the first, ominous signs on May 14, when 41-year-old Vijay Singh, a resident of Ranchi, fell sick with Covid symptoms. The virus gave him little time—by next day, he was panting heavily. The family rushed about at all hospitals in Ranchi, but was rep­eatedly rebuffed. After futile attempts, they found a bed in the newly opened Amrit Hospital. The establishment was unfinished and lacked infrastructure. The ‘ward’ was an empty hall with three beds and minimal medical equipment. Dismally, there was one oxygen cylinder for three patients. As Vijay’s oxygen level fluctuated, the nurse had to increase the concentration of oxygen, perforce putting the lives of the other two in danger.

Kumkum, Vijay’s niece, tells Outlook, “Around 4 am the next morning, we got a call from the hospital informing us that they had run out of oxygen. We asked if we needed to arrange oxygen. But the nurses said, ‘No, it’s coming’.”

Two hours later, the family got another call. “Take your patient back,” they were told curtly. “His condition is getting serious. The oxygen cylinders haven’t reached yet. Also, he might need a ventilator. We don’t have one.”

At six in the morning, family members, Covid patients themselves by now, frantically tried to organise for Vijay some minutes of life-saving air. Their quest was relentless, begging every hospital and doctor for help while a profusely sweating and palpitating Vijay gasped and thrashed about. The end came suddenly, amidst the endless wandering for succour.

But the ordeal wasn’t over. When the family went back to Amrit hospital to get the certificate confirming that the patient died of Covid-19, the hospital turned them down. Even though CT scan reports confirmed Covid, the certificate was denied because the family had no RT-PCR report. After Kumkum pleaded with the administration to see reason, she was confronted with a cruelly ­inflexible demand that stuck to empty formality: the dead body’s RT-PCR had to be done. “They told me after we cremated him. Do we get his ashes tested for Covid?” she asks, sobbing uncontrollably. Till date, Vijay’s death has not been registered as a Covid fatality.

Vijay, who was a medical representative of pesticides and fertilisers, was the fam­ily’s sole earner. His death plunged the family into financial crisis—his son and daughter, aged six and seven, have dropped out of school. Their mother is red­uced to borrow money every week to meet daily expenses. Vijay, uncounted as a Covid-19 victim, might be just one less death for the government, but for his wife and children it means no financial assistance for any such future scheme.

“The one who goes to cremate his relative knows...cremation grounds are filled with dead bodies. There is no place left to stand,” recalls Kumkum, her eyes filling up again. She tells us that when she dialled Jharkhand’s Covid Helpline ‘104’ and asked if it would be considered a Covid death if someone with the symptoms died before getting tested, the reply was an unequivocal, ‘No. Go and get the dead body tested.” It’s a mad, heartless world, my masters. 

‘He died begging for air’

Amar Kumar Vajpayee

Can grief trigger the direst of health crises? When Amar Kumar Vajpayee, a 60-year Covid patient, got to know about the disease that took the life of a close family member, he went into acute depression. In home quarantine with his family in Ghaziabad, his condition started worsening on February 20, with that one tell-tale sign—a struggle to breathe. The family rushed him to GTB Hospital. “We have no bed and no oxygen,” they were told.

Amar’s oxygen level had fallen to 80 and was consistently dropping. At RML Hospital, too, there was no bed left. Amar lay on a stretcher near the entrance, waiting for a bed to be available, fighting for his life. After suffering the indignity of an endless wait out in the open, a doctor finally attended him. “He is no more,” the family was told. His oxygen level had fallen to 12. “He would have been with us if the hospital had given him oxygen,” says his brother Ajay. “My brother died begging for breath. I will never forget that day.”

‘Mummy badalon par gayi hai’

Saraswati Bisht

Everyone read the danger early. Saraswati Bisht,39 ,a resident of Delhi’s Sonia Vihar, was the mother of an 11-year-old differently abled boy and two six- and eight-year-old daughters. At the end of April, Saraswati tested positive for Covid-19. On May 1, she conveyed her discomfort to her brother Deepak, who arranged an empty cylinder—that first acquisition, no less precious, tow­ards the real article—through a friend in Bawana. From 8 pm at night to 11 am the next day, Deepak kept waiting in the queue to get it refilled at a plant in Bawana. His turn would come after a day, they said. “I literally begged everywhere there. Nobody helped,” says Deepak, breaking down.

Meanwhile, Saraswati’s condition worsened. Deepak and a cousin now were on the trail of a hospital bed. Eight hospitals were approa­ched in all, eight stabs of disappointment rec­eived. Meanwhile, the mother of three, feeling her energy slipping away, kept pleading, “Mujhe admit karwa do” (Please get me adm­itted). Finally, Deepak’s frantic search ended in Gurgaon’s Metro hospital, with the promise of a bed. But fate had played a deceptive hand—after a couple of hours, the hospital staff said, “We don’t have oxygen and bed, your patient needs to leave.” Still sobbing, Deepak recalls: “The whole night, we carried her from one hospital to another. None helped. Next morning, gasping for breath, she left us.” Saraswati’s son has not been able to comprehend the tragedy of it all; her little sisters, too, are sheltered, for now, from their loss. “Mummy badalon par gayi hai,” (Mummy’s in the clouds) they repeat, nodding with assurance. The cruel twist of fate continued after Sara­s­wati’s death. “We kept waiting for an amb­ulance to take her to the cremation gro­und, but nothing materialised. In the end, we called the police, hoping to get help,” says Deepak. What happened thereafter was shocking and emblematic of police ham-fistedness. Two policemen from Sonia Vihar ­police station arrived at their house. “Why did you call us?” they barked. “If you had to cremate her, you should have gone. Now, we will take her body in our custody.” Earnest, tearful entreaties would not deter them; they took the body away for post mortem. Saraswati’s husband pleaded for hours the next day ­before he got her back. After over 28 hours of her death, the family could cremate her.

‘I can still hear her scream’

Asifa

It was an ungodly hour—around 3 in the morning on May 16—when Sonia received an SOS alert on Instagram. It was from 25-year-old Asifa, a resident of Azadpur in Delhi. Her mother, Nagma, was gasping for breath. Her oxygen level had plummeted to 60.

Sonia had come to know the whereabouts of oxygen dealers two days back, in the course of a frenzied search for oxygen for her own ailing mother. She was in the position to help Asifa. Sonia tells Outlook, “For four consecutive days, Asifa’s brother stood in a queue from five in the morning to 10 at night and got nothing. At any point of time, there were more than 500 people standing in those queues.” Whenever Nagma’s oxygen level dropped, she started shrieking. “I can still hear her piercing scream. She was in so much pain,” says Sonia.

An oxygen cylinder was procured after much ado, but it ran out in a couple of days. Sonia recalls, “Often, while standing in the queue, I saw big cars and police vans coming and getting multiple cylinders refilled at once, while people like us were asked to wait for 48 hours. Even then, we returned empty-handed. They shut the door on us mercilessly.”

Sonia speaks of those two fateful days when Asifa’s brother and she took turns to stand in the queue. “We had been there since May 18. On May 20, around 7 in the morning, I got a call from Asifa. ‘She is no more,’ she said.” Asifa’s mother had suffocated to death, suffering the tragic fate that had befallen thousands in this hour of shameful mismanagement. Asifa has not been able to cope with the trauma. Often, in the middle of a conversation, she gets up and says, “Ammi ko uthana hai” (I’ve to wake up mother), and dashes off. She gets sudden tremors and wakes up screaming and perspiring at night, imaging her mother’s presence at the door or hearing her voice calling out to her. Her voice choking with emotion, Sonia says, “I went to stay with her once because she was very depressed. At night, I saw her screaming ‘Ammi’ and crying loudly. I cannot forget that night. It was the same piercing scream as her mother’s. I don’t know if she will ever recover.”

‘Give me poison. They won’t admit me. I won’t survive.’

Renu Vajpayee

The widespread belief that the clamour for oxygen, and the thousands of tragedies emanating thereof, had come into being during the darkest days of the second wave in April-May is disproved by this incident. On February 13, 50-year-old Renu Vajpayee, a resident of Vaishali, Ghaziabad, tested positive for Covid and was under home isolation. Three days later, she started struggling for breath. Her oxygen levels dropped to 84. The family rushed her to Naveen Hospital, where they were den­ied admission. Their endless, desperate and futile search for oxygen began there.

Next, with Renu, the family did the dispiriting rounds—AmiCare Hospital, Vaishali; Chandra Laxmi Hospital, Indirapuram, LYF Hospital, Vasundhara, and many more. Ajay Kumar Vajpayee, Renu’s brother-in-law, says, “There was a bed available in Narendra Mohan Hospital. But some VIP came and we were told that the bed will be given to his patient.”

After knocking the doors of around 20 hospitals in Vaishali, Vasundhara, Indirapuram and Delhi, at around 3 am, the desperate seekers reached Lady Hardinge Hospital. They were waiting outside when a doctor who was leaving after his shift told them, “We have been instructed by the government to not take Covid patients anymore.”

Nearly at the end of their tether, the family then searched for hospital beds in Gurgaon, Saket, Patparganj, Kaushambi and then ­returned to Ghaziabad. On their way back, they must have stopped at 10 hospitals. Not a single door opened for help.

Around 10 in the morning the following day, Renu, still holding on and panting for air, told her family: “Give me poison. They won’t admit me. I won’t survive any­more.” They brought her home to let her rest. Meanwhile, Ajay kept looking for an oxygen cylinder. Meerut, he was told, was where cylinders might be refilled. But the dealer said no oxygen would be available before 2 pm.

Meanwhile, profiteers and cheaters were at work—a clerk at Naveen Hospital promised to secretly sell a cylinder for Rs 15,000. After Ajay sent the money, he stopped taking calls. Meanwhile, Renu’s oxygen level had slipped to a dangerous 67. A desperate Ajay rushed to Meerut and was in the queue to refill the cylinder when he got a call from home. “Chacha, wapas aa jao (Uncle, come back),” said the strangely grave, adult-like voice of his 12-year-old niece. “My niece has lost that childlike spark in her eyes. She was the centre of our universe. Her laughter, dancing, talking...it seems as if all of it went away with her mother,” laments a disconsolate Ajay.

‘Papa utho, Papa utho’

Yogesh Gupta

In instance after instance, one sees the same pattern—a stealthy ­app­roach of the disease, followed by a precipitate descent into illness, and thence into despair.

Yogesh Gupta, 56, a resident of Laxmi Nagar in Delhi, was recovering from paralysis for the past six years. In the first week of April, he showed Covid symptoms; his family kept him under home isolation. On April 22, Yogesh suddenly ran out of breath. He was panting heavily.

“Because we could not get a bed in any hospital, his oxygen levels began to deteriorate. It dropped from 80 to 60 within two hours,” ­informs Manish, his nephew who was tasked with running around to organise oxygen. A local dealer promised to deliver a cylinder within one hour. As agreed, Manish transferred Rs 38,000 to his account. They still haven’t heard from him. Meanwhile, Yogesh’s SPO2 level had fallen to an alarming 60 and the doctors insisted on speedy ­hospitalisation. The family did get a small oxygen cylinder, but it was empty in three hours.

By then, Yogesh was gasping for breath again. “By 6 am, he was lying still,” says Manish. He left behind his wife and 23-year-old daughter who cried in desperation, “Papa utho, Papa utho”. After six hours, when the ambulance reached their house, they rushed Yogesh to the nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead.

Yogesh’s wife and daughter have moved residence to try and move on but, considering the way he died, they still await closure. With all their savings wiped out in hospital bills, both are struggling to make ends meet. His daughter, a bright student, had high ambitions in life—dreams nurtured by Yogesh. Indeed, Yogesh’s family suffered another death—his daughter’s hopes died of suffocation too.