As hospitals in Delhi and other cities run out of beds, people in India have been forced to find a way to get treatment for patients at home
On Monday, India had recorded a new global high for daily COVID-19 cases for a fifth day in a row at 352, 991.
Many people have turned to the black market, where prices of the essential medicines, oxygen cylinders and concentrators have since skyrocketed and questionable drugs are now proliferating.
Anshu Priya could not get access to a hospital bed in Delhi or within its suburb of Noida for her father-in-law, as his condition was continuing to deteriorate. She spent most of her Sunday looking for an oxygen cylinder but couldn’t find one.
This comes after the Daily Mail has reported that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told an October meeting: “No more ****ing lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands!”
She finally turned to the black market, where she paid the large sum of 50,000 rupees ($670; £480), in order to procure an oxygen cylinder that would normally cost around 6,000 rupees. With her mother-in-law also showing signs that she was struggling to breathe, Anshu knew that she may not be able to find or afford a second cylinder of oxygen on the black market.
This is a familiar story that is seen not just in Delhi but also within Noida, Lucknow, Allahabad, Indore as well as so many other cities in India where families have been desperately cobbling together makeshift hospital arrangements at home.
But most of the population of India cannot afford to do this. There are already several reports of people that have been dying at the doorsteps of hospitals because they were not able to afford to buy essential drugs or oxygen on the country’s black market.
The BBC has called several oxygen cylinder suppliers and most of them had been asking for at least 10 times the normal price for the necessary oxygen tanks.
The situation is particularly dire within Delhi where there are no longer any ICU beds left.
Families of those who are able to afford it are hiring nurses and consulting doctors remotely in order to keep their loved ones being able to breathe.
But the struggles in the nation are dire, from getting blood tests done to getting a CT scan or x-ray.
Labs are overrun and it is taking up to three full days for COVID-19 test results to come back, which is making it harder for treating doctors to assess the progression of the coronavirus. CT scans are also used by doctors in order to assess the condition of the patient but it is taking days for many to be able to get an appointment.
This comes after Britons’ prospects of booking a holiday abroad this summer have been given a boost, with the UK government saying that COVID passports will become available “as soon as possible”.
Doctors in India say that these delays are putting many of the country’s patients at risk. RT-PCR tests are also taking many days.
Anuj Tiwari had hired a nurse to assist in the treatment of his brother at home after he had been refused admission in many hospitals.
Some said that they didn’t have any available beds and others said they were not taking in any new patients due to continuing uncertainty over the supply of oxygen cylinders. A number of patients have already died in Delhi as a result to a lack of oxygen supply.
