Skip to main content

Collapse of healthcare system? Why 90% of Covid patients treated at home survived

By Bobby Ramakant, Sandeep Pandey*

Well known Hindustani classical singer Padma Vibhu shan Channulal Mishra, chosen as one of the proposers of Narendra Modi in Lok Sabha elections, lost his wife and elder daughter to Covid in private hospitals in Varanasi. Younger daughter has accused Medwin Hospital of charging Rs 1.5 lakh for treatement of her sister and not being able to explain the cause of death. Pandit Channulal Mishra has asked for a probe into his daughter’s death from the Chief Minister. The family has also asked for the CCTV footage of the ward where deceased daughter was admitted for a week.
Madhurima Kundu, a PhD student at Jawaharlal Nehru University was admitted for four days at Sultanpuri Government Isolation Centre for Covid patients in Delhi and has described the pathetic conditions related to availability and behavior of doctors, medical and para-medical staff, sanitation, food, medicines, linen and monitoring of oxygen in a petition filed in High Court. The ill patients had to go down to the reception to ask for every basic thing and stand in queues in scorching sun to get medicines.
True to the spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat, 90% of the patients who chose to treat themselves at their homes, even without a trained medical staff available at hand, survived mainly because of better patient care at home. Most who died was because of negligence of hospitals more than the disease.
Question is why were family members as attendants, with Personal Protective Equipment and proper precautions, not allowed in hospitals? How many government-run and private hospitals do we know in India where attendant-less care is possible?
Caring and supporting have an important role to play in the healing process. But our healthcare system is, barring rare exceptions, built in a way that we need a battery of attendants to support a hospitalized person. Given this grave reality, was it not a disaster to force-execute Covid isolation and quarantine based on an attendant-less approach?
During the last 17 months since the global public health emergency was declared, the government has miserably failed to prepare the health system for attendant-less care for Covid patients. Moreover, rights-based access to care still remains a mirage for majority of our population.
Number of people hid their Covid condition at home for the fear of being dragged to hospital by the administration as they had more faith in their family members and local doctors. Most who availed the services of hospitals were middle and upper middle class as only they could manage a bed there. Why were people from slums, which are densely populated and hence should have been more prone to spread of disease, not there in hospitals?
Surprisingly, the per capita cases were less in slums and lower income group localities. The government response has failed to acknowledge the mistrust its top-down decisions propel among communities, such as the idea of a highly centralized command control centres. Profiling of Covid positive people or criminalizing them or harassing whistleblowers who raised important concerns on Covid response (such as shortage of oxygen) are measures that will dissuade people to come forward.
Another reason for deaths in hospitals was that bureaucrats were taking decisions, including the nature of treatment, instead of people from the medical field. For example, in UP the command control centres were taking decision about the hospital to which patient should be admitted depending on availability of beds. A simple system where relatives of patients could find out even before leaving their home which was the nearest hospital with an available bed was not put in place in spite of all the hullabaloo about digital India.
Number of patients died on way from one hospital to another. Member of Parliament Kaushal Kishore exposed how ventilators and BiPAP in Balrampur Hospital were lying unused for want of technically trained personnel who could operate them and over hundred beds with Oxygen in Respiratory Medicine wards, including ICU, of King George Medical University were not being utilized. The failure of health care system was criminal.
Even when doctors knew that Remdisivir was not a cure for Covid, at best it shortened the period of stay in hospital, and plasma therapy was not effective against the new variant of corona virus (except for very few studies that show its possible role in very initial days since the beginning of infection), patients were being made to run from pillar to post to arrange for these ‘prescribed’ treatments. Government was chest thumping on largest ‘plasma bank’ while there was no concrete evidence to back its claim. Finally, plasma therapy was dropped from treatment protocol by Covid Naitonal Task Force on 18 May, 2021.
Despite knowing fully well that there is no cure for novel corona virus and emerging science and data is very limited on its clinical management, government has failed to prioritise prevention. Breaking the chain of transmission of the infectious virus should have been centrestage to Covid response right from the very beginning of the epidemic. We failed to protect our frontline healthcare workers who not only contracted Covid but also an alarming number of them died in spite of having been vaccinated.
Government was chest thumping on largest plasma bank while there was no concrete evidence to back its claim. Finally, plasma therapy was dropped
How can we forget those nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers who had raised their voice against acute shortage of PPE or masks when the pandemic began? Why was health system not fully prepared to use all evidence-based measures to prevent transmission of the virus among frontline healthcare workers?
The pandemic has reminded us of the essentialness of the values and rights enshrined in our Constitution for every human being. Instead of ensuring social support security for every human being and people-centric agenda taking centrestage in governance for delivering on the promise of ‘Health For All’, the government is allowing select companies to mint profits, blackmarketing and hoarding to plague our ailing system, and worst of all, profiteering from illness and death to continue to take deeper roots.
The Union and the State government now seem to be competing to announce relief measures for children orphaned due to Covid. Did we need a Covid to remind us of the society’s responsibility towards orphans? And even now government is talking about only children orphaned dur to Covid, not all orphans! Considering there is underreporting of Covid related deaths how many orphans or their well wishers will be able to prove that the parent(s) died of Covid in order to avail the ‘benefits’ from our labyrinthine bureaucracy?
Will this government move away from event management approach and rather focus on serving its duty towards all our people? We should not have to use our class-caste connections to secure a bed in a hospital or a place in a creamatorium. When will the system become sensitive and responsive to every citizen of this country.
---
*With Socialist Party (India)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sad article written my cynical and sick minds. Authors need treatment. They have no knowledge about health and disease. Most of the Covid patients treated at home are the mild cases. Hospitalised patients are since and most of the Covid mortality will be in hospitalised patients. Current mortality in India is 1.1%. The Tortola numbers are very high because disease load is very high.

What the authors must realise is that had state Governments imposed lockdowns (especially Maharashtra and Delhi) ten days earlier many lives would have been saved. The real question is why did the Governments not impose lockdown earlier? Don’t the chief ministers know hat their healthcare systems can cope with. Don’t they have the basic intelligence to see the daily number of cases and test positivity rates and calculate when their healthcare would be overwhelmed. If they are not capable of predicting this are they fit to govern?

Instead the authors question the inadequacies of the healthcare system and denigrate the healthcare workers. Poor quality and sic minds of the authors are obvious
theconflict2010 said…
You can love one ideology but it should not kill your humanity. A doctor or a teacher's death is not of a person but of a group of patients or students. Likewise of other professionals. But we are taught to argue it that how percentage wise we are at better position. Individual becomes a percent.
Secondly, above anonymous comments holder has no knowledge of rural areas. Not mild but villagers don't want to be admitted. Whoever goes does not return, this they feel.
More attention is required by the government.

TRENDING

Reducing emission? India among top nations whose coal as energy source going up

By NS Venkataraman*  The State of the Global Climate report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that the year 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global temperature of 1.4 degree celsius above pre-industrial 1850-1900 base line.

Lockdown 'total failure' of science more than of politics: Open letter on 4th anniversary

Counterview Desk  In an open letter to fellow academicians, scientists and medical practitioners in India, marking the fourth anniversary of India's lockdown (25 March 2024), the Managing Committee* of the Universal Health Organisation (UHO) has insisted on the need to "repair two years of immense damage to science".

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Magnetic, stunning, Protima Bedi 'exposed' malice of sexual repression in society

By Harsh Thakor*  Protima Bedi was born to a baniya businessman and a Bengali mother as Protima Gupta in Delhi in 1949. Her father was a small-time trader, who was thrown out of his family for marrying a dark Bengali women. The theme of her early life was to rebel against traditional bondage. It was extraordinary how Protima underwent a metamorphosis from a conventional convent-educated girl into a freak. On October 12th was her 75th birthday; earlier this year, on August 18th it was her 25th death anniversary.

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

'Wrong direction': Paris NGO regrets MNC ArcelorMittal still using coal-based steel

By Rajiv Shah  A new report by Paris-based non-governmental research and campaigning organization, Reclaim Finance, has blamed the MNC ArcelorMittal – formed in 2006 following the takeover and merger of the western European steel maker Arcelor (Spain, France, and Luxembourg) by Indian-owned Mittal Steel – for using use “climate destructive” metallurgical coal for its projects in India.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Attack on foreign students: Gujarat varsity's reputation, ranking at stake, say academics

Counterview Desk  Expressing anguish over the attack on international students in Gujarat University hostels, a letter claimed to have been signed by 122 current and former academics has asked the Gujarat Vice Chancellor, Dr Neerja Gupta, to provide emotional support to the attacked students and to ensure their physical safety.  

As double engine takes backseat in Odisha, BJP is pitted against 'firmly rooted' BJD

By Sudhansu R Das  BJP has got 25 years to build its party base in Odisha. After 25 years, it felt helpless and insecure to fight elections on its own strength. The party was almost crazy to have an alliance with the ruling BJD in Odisha.  Looking for alliance at the time of election shows that the party has not groomed its grassroots level workers into potential leaders.  The state BJP leaders woke up and convinced the Central leaders that they are capable of going solo; the alliance was stillborn. The question is can BJP defeat BJD which is firmly rooted in Odisha after launching piles of populist programs in the state.