Where did we go wrong?

On a usual day, you walk into the AIIMS casualty, it is buzzing with patients everywhere. Residents scrambling from pillar to post to sort out patient issues. Working in a super speciality department, I receive calls almost once every 10-15 minutes, asking me to assess my patients and plan further line of care and management. It is a stressful job, but yet it was what we were trained here to do and that's what our passion resided in. But as days progressed, the calls on my mobile drastically came down, not because there were no patients, but just because the numbers of Covid positives were exponentially rising. With time the numbers just kept increasing and due to non-availability of beds, patients had to be kept in emergency itself.

The level-III PPE kits were back, grim faces and uncertainty loomed over us. The lines of patients just kept increasing; admissions just couldn't happen due to lack of beds. Patients pleading and requesting for admission after being shuttled from various hospitals, the scenes were stressful and depressing. We wanted to help, but yet we stood helpless and defeated. Many said the healthcare system of this country has collapsed, I kept telling myself, when did it collapse? "It never did, it just stands exposed".

Where do we start? Who de we blame? We have failed at every organisational level possible. We recently saw a celebrated post by NASA which claims to have produced oxygen for the first time in Martian environment. Despite a celebrated advance in science, a nation with a population of 1.3 billion finds itself scrambling for oxygen. A cruel irony it is. We all know it is not the time to play the blame game card and rather fight with unity and resolve in this unpreceded crisis. But yet we need to stand up and question where and when did we really go wrong?

Every pandemic we saw till date, let it be the Spanish flu to the recent H1NI, did see relapses happen. So, for a country like India wasn't it foreseen? When so many countries in the west have been experiencing resurgence in case load, didn't we see this coming? Why are we caught so off-guard?

We did see a lot of commotion in the first wave. Our government kept on ensuring us that we are doing much better compared to other countries. When we needed, hotels and stadiums were turned into makeshift hospitals and when the case load came down everything was again back to normal. Money was shunted to open the world's largest stadium, money was shunted to build the prestigious Central Vista project for our glorified political class and as usual the election fever gripped the country and Covid-19 almost was forgotten, until it made its grand re-entry with various mutants.

The discussion of lack of ventilators and oxygen was very well highlighted during the first wave as well. The virus was kind enough to give you almost a year to act. But apart from rolling out vaccines, we never bothered to strengthen the basic pillars of healthcare infrastructure. Not a single stone has moved be it hospitals, ventilators or healthcare staff.

For a healthcare worker, he is only filled with anguish and pain to see patients suffer. It takes a heavy mental toll to see patients die right in front of you, not because of your inabilities, but because you are unable to provide the most basic and essential supply of "Oxygen". The decision makers of this country were busy attending rallies and roadshows to ensure victory of their parties and did not stop even when the surge was evident and warnings were thrown. The short televised address to the nation by the PM was sombre and lacklustre; he was confused, appalled and clueless. The PM and HM addressed rallies in West Bengal jet paced so big that he said he hadn't seen one before, at a time when people were dying and crying for help.

This almighty second wave has just begun. Our government looks like a hare frozen in the headlights. Never stop your questions from being brushed under the carpet of warm ashes piling up at our crematoriums. If oxygen tankers are being airlifted by Airforce and green corridors being made under security cover for transport of basic oxygen, this is nothing less than a war like situation. Is it a war only against the virus or war against the mismanaged governance only time will tell, but let us all stand tall and positive in this tough times, and I can assure every healthcare worker is doing his best to save every precious life of his fellow citizens and hope we overcome this crisis at the earliest with minimal loss of life. Hope at least now the elite political class takes note of the deplorable state of healthcare of this country and give it due importance before it is too late.

(The author is Senior Resident, Dept of Gastroenterology and Human Nutrition, AIIMS, New Delhi)