Politics
Dad who lost wife and unborn baby to Covid films tearful outburst at India’s broken health system as deaths pass 200,000
A GRIEF-stricken husband filmed his tearful outburst at India’s failing healthcare system after Covid killed his wife and their unborn child.
Sachin, who claims doctors could have saved pregnant Anjali, is seen wandering a hospital looking for someone to speak to and shouting: “There’s nobody here. They destroyed me.”
The emotional video emerged as India recorded a global record number of infections for the sixth day running and the death toll passed 200,000.
Experts believe the true figure could be five times that as many deaths outside hospital have not been recorded.
PM Narendra Modi has been accused of failing to invest in creaking medical services, leading to a shortage of beds and oxygen supplies when the devastating second wave hit.
Sachin, from Uttar Pradesh, told the BBC doctors wasted three days shunting Anjali between different hospitals for tests instead of treating her.
Moments after being told she and their unborn child were dead, he filmed himself shouting out for a doctor to explain why she could not be saved.
Sachin, who has two other kids, said later: “I had so much pain inside me, as if someone had ripped my heart out of my chest.
“I knew I needed to raise my voice against the system.
He added: “This disease can be dangerous but our system is even more dangerous.”
Another grieving relative, Nishi, said her mother-in-law Beena was sent to four different hospitals in the capital Delhi.
She said a doctor showed her bodies of Covid victims “bagged and lying around” as she pleaded in vain for a bed.
She sobbed: “It was the worst night of my life.
“We were not able to save her because of such mismanagement all around Delhi.”
Eslewhere today, shocking footage showed a man forced to carry his wife for a mile to a cremation ground after authorities refused to help in Kamareddy, near Hyderabad.
And Covid patients were treated with oxygen in the back of cars after they were turned away from hospitals in Delhi and Ghaziabad.
Today India recorded a new global high of 362,757 daily infections, and another 3,293 deaths, its highest figure yet.
It means it is the fourth country to pass 200,000 deaths, after the US, Mexico and Brazil.
Experts have warned there could be 500,000 cases a day next month and another 750,000 deaths by August as the virus spreads out of control.
Mass cremations are continue round the clock in Delhi[/caption]
A Covid patient is treated with oxygen today in the back of a car in Ghaziabad[/caption]
A man had to carry his dead wife a mile to be cremated in Kamareddy[/caption]
A desperate son tied his father to a car roof to take him to a crematorium in Agra[/caption]
Yesterday we told how a son dumped his sick mother by the side of the road and left her to die because he feared catching coronavirus in Kanpur.
Another man in Agra strapped his dead dad to a car roof to drive him to a crematorium because of a shortage of ambulances.
Indian cities have been overwhelmed by a devastating second wave “tsunami”
Earlier yesterday, harrowing footage showed dozens of Covid victims lined up on the ground at Delhi’s Shubash Nagar Crematorium.
Relatives can be seen carefully placing a Covid victim at the end of a snaking queue of other corpses.
They are all wrapped in shrouds ready for cremation, some with flowers draped on top.
Further back, more families carrying loved-ones are seen waiting to join the line.
Relatives place a Covid victim in line for cremation in Delhi[/caption]
It joined a snaking queue of corpses at the Shubash Nagar Crematorium[/caption]
Loved ones load a Covid victim into an ambulance today in Delhi[/caption]
Health workers in hazmat suits at a banqueting hall turned into a field hospital in Delhi[/caption]
Relatives beg to get a tank refilled at an oxygen factory[/caption]
Coffin makers hard at work in Hyderabad[/caption]
Crematoriums are operating round the clock to cope with thousands of daily deaths – and experts say worse is to come.
Delhi emergency medic Dr Shaarang Sachdev told Sky News: “This pandemic is the worst we have ever seen until now.
“The next two weeks are going to be hell for us.”
Hundreds of patients have reportedly died in recent days because hospitals ran short of life-saving oxygen.
Others died on hospital doorsteps begging for air because there were no beds.
The shortage has sparked a 1,500 per cent hike in the price of black market oxygen, with some families paying £900 for £60 cylinders.
Antiviral drug remdesivir has also rocketed in price 20-fold.
Last night it was reported some desperate virus victims were hurling themselves off buildings.
A West Bengal man was reported to have leapt to his death from a hospital roof after testing positive.
In Patna in the north east, a railway worker beheaded his wife when she caught the virus then leapt to his death from their apartment.
Film also emerged showing a victim’s body falling from an overloaded ambulance en route to a crematorium.
In Delhi the night sky glows orange from funeral pyres[/caption]
A worker comforts the relative of one Covid victim at a cremation ground[/caption]
New pyres are lit constantly in a ‘conveyor belt of death’[/caption]
Experts say the real death toll could be five times the official figure[/caption]
The virus has already engulfed Delhi and Mumbai and is now ravaging giant port city Kolkata, home to 15million.
Around half of Covid tests there are coming back positive, compared with one in 20 at the start of April.
The surge has been blamed partly on forthcoming elections in the surrounding state of West Bengal.
PM Narendra Modi has come under fire for staging a “super spreader” election rally attended by thousands of supporters of his BJP party.
Meanwhile, judges at the Madras High Court said “irresponsible” Election Commission officials should face possible murder charges for allowing rallies to go ahead.
India was once seen as a success story in beating the pandemic but Mr Modi now stands accused of cover-ups and dismal failure.
His government has mobilised army medics to help support overwhelmed hospitals.
But he was slammed for ordering Twitter to censor criticism of his handling of the crisis.
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On Monday the first of nine plane loads of medical equipment donated by the UK landed in India.
The vital supplies include 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators, machines that suck pure gas from the air.
France, Germany, Ireland and the US have also vowed to send aid.
A family prays for a Covid victim in Ahmedabad[/caption]
A woman is consoled by her relative after her husband died from Covid[/caption]
India is fighting the ‘world’s worst’ Covid outbreak[/caption]
Hospitals are running out of beds and oxygen, forcing families to buy canisters on the black market[/caption]
