Even in sleep I hear sounds of people trying desperately to breathe; An Indian doctor describes typical day during Covid

According to Aftabuddin Ahmed, who is a 37-year-old surgeon at a government hospital in Delhi, his hospital was treating approximately 5,000 patients, but the now the number has doubled and hundreds of patients show up on daily basis.

“It is unbearable to watch. That sound – the sound of people trying so desperately to breathe – I would hear it in my sleep, if ever I was able to get some. I am on call all day, every day. We work around the clock. The situation is dire but I fear the worst is yet to come,” he said.

The doctor said that every day he receives 20 to 25 calls from people who are desperately trying to search bed or oxygen facility for their loved ones.

“Today I got a call from someone was looking for a bed for their family member I had to turn them away as we simply don’t have any beds available. I feel helpless knowing all I can do is refer them to another hospital where they also may not have any beds. This shortage of beds and oxygen is unlike anything I have seen before,” he said adding,

“The situation in the emergency room cannot be expressed in words. It is the same in the wards, the main Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the makeshift one. There are patients everywhere, even the hallways are full. There is no room to move.”

India’s current Covid wave has taken on frightening proportions, driven in part by a new variant of the virus which has double mutations. Earlier this week, India overtook Brazil as the country with the second-highest number of cases in the world, behind the USA. Experts are concerned that given the low testing rate, India possibly has higher number of cases than either US or Brazil.

On Friday, the country reported almost 414,188 cases and 3,915 deaths. Real numbers could be much higher, with crematoriums and graveyards both running out of space across the country.

Courtesy: Al-Jazeera