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Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh – Richa Gupta believes her father would have survived if she had received treatment earlier.
The 17-year-old, who has just finished high school, lives in Sultanpur Kheda, a town of about 6,000 people, 11 kilometers from the city of Rae Bareli and 385 kilometers from the Indian capital New Delhi.
His 47-year-old father, Awadhesh Gupta, was previously healthy but died on April 27 – according to Richak COVID-19. However, they have never tested the virus, no one can be completely sure.
“My dad was totally fit,” he says. But on the evening of April 16 the temperature developed. “He started coughing the next day,” Richa recalls.
He says he bought the medication at a local pharmacy, but it didn’t work and “the temperature was rising.”
According to Richa, his father consulted him about the local “quack” – an unregistered “doctor” who went to the public often to save time because public health services are remote and often overcrowded. These doctors are not officially licensed, but in rural areas of India people are often dependent on them. Richa says the “doctor” prescribed more medicines, adding that “he took them for two days but nothing worked.”
On April 22, Awadhesh Rae went to a private hospital in Bareli, but was told to go to a city government hospital because he had similar symptoms to COVID. There, doctors gave him more medicine and advised him to stay at home in quarantine.
Richa cries as she explains that she was not tested for COVID-19 at the hospital. It is certain, however, that he killed the virus.
Awadhesh began living on breathing on April 24 and, on the advice of a friend who was a doctor, went for a CT scan at Rae Bareli’s private lab. “After that, we found out that my father’s lungs were very infected [we were sure] He had COVID, ”Richa explained.
“The CT scan report said that one of my father’s lungs was completely damaged and the other was 50 per cent damaged. His mother’s uncle immediately took him to a neighborhood hospital and from there he was taken to Lal Ganj hospital provided by COVID. [around 20 miles from Rae Bareli city].
“My father was put in there on April 25, but he didn’t have the help of oxygen except. He was pronounced dead on April 27, ”he says.
For the certainty that the family had COVID, Awadhesh’s death was recorded as the death of COVID. However, in many cases where a patient has not had a COVID study, the authorities have caused their deaths to be “unknown” or “natural” or due to “comorbidities” (underlying health conditions).
Richa believes his father knows when and where he hired COVID.
“I am sure my father was infected when he went out to vote for the panchayat (village council) elections,” he says.
The popular council elections in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, were held in April for four days in a row – the first of which was on April 15, when Awadhesh went to the polls. Social campaigns and non-compliance with the wearing of masks during election campaigns and voting have been criticized.
The house of Awadhesh Kumar Gupta died on April 27th [Saurabh Sharma/Al Jazeera]‘Mysterious fever’
Vinod Tiwari was the village leader (or gram pradham) until he was ousted in the last election. He says he has reported 12 people killed in the village in the past three weeks, but said only two of the deaths were due to COVID-19.
“Not all the deaths that have happened in the village [officially] Because of COVID-19, ”he says.“ Two people in the village were killed in hospitals while COVID was positive, while two or three others had similar COVID symptoms. The cause of death of others is not known but people say they were comorbidities [those with underlying health issues]”.
Others believe the number of deaths is higher. Sudeep Shukla, a village farmer, has an informal record of each person killed. He has put up the number 18 in the last three weeks. They’re all sick and yet nothing is being done to fix that “mysterious fever” that is taking their lives, he says. It is certain that it is COVID-19.
“My cousin is sick. The neighbor is sick. The type of flour mill is sick. The owner of the grocery store is sick. The boy across the street is sick. They are all sick. Everyone is coughing and so far 18 people have been killed in three weeks. We have never seen so many deaths in such a short time. The elderly who are dying may seem normal but the middle-aged who are dying are not normal. This should end now. Fever and virus are enough, ”Sudeep says.
Sudeep Shukla said 18 people have been killed in the past three weeks [Saurabh Sharma/Al Jazeera]
Vinod Tiwari said the villagers suspect the rise in deaths is linked to the town council elections. “A lot of crowds were seen in all the election-related activities, whether it’s nominating, campaigning, voting or even counting the election,” he explained.
“The villagers who live in other cities came to the village to take advantage of the franchise. They traveled on public transportation and there were no screenings or examinations. God knows if they carried the virus, but soon people started dying. “
The nearest medical facility in the state is a community health center in the town of Jatua, about six miles away. But it is not equipped to handle complex cases like COVID. Those with symptoms are referred to a city government hospital in Rae Bareli or to a hospital dedicated to COVID in Lal Ganj where Awadhesh died. It has 10 fans and 250 beds, 112 of which have oxygen support, according to Dr. BR Yadav. There are 15 doctors and 30 healthy people, all of whom are old enough to be cared for, says the director.
A sick woman receives help from her children as friends carry an oxygen cylinder behind her as she enters a hospital provided by COVID in Lal Ganj in the Rae Bareli neighborhood. [Saurabh Sharma/Al Jazeera]
Small businesses such as grocery stores and agriculture make up the main economy of the town – in the north it is occupied by the more privileged caste members of the less privileged caste members in the south.
There are also three “poops” living in the village, but all three have now “disappeared” from the village, locals say. These unregistered doctors believe they have gone into hiding for fear of COVID cases and fear that health department officials will come. The town’s only pharmacy has become a one-stop shop for citizens seeking immediate medical help for COVID-like symptoms. It is owned by Manoj Verma, who is about 30 years old.
“The state facilities are of little value, as the villagers have become accustomed to visiting local doctors, but they are unregistered doctors. These doctors have stopped looking at patients because of the pandemic and abundance in COVID-19 cases, now people come to my shop to pick up medicines.” he explained.
“For medicines, [a] prescription is mandatory, but now people come to ask for painkillers, aspirins, antibiotics, antiparasitic drugs and medicines like these. [a] no prescription is required and I give them to the doctor for the first visit and only to give the doctor a prescription to give a warning. “
But Manoj says he’s seeing another problem as well – “people are scared to try COVID-19, even after developing severe symptoms like shortness of breath. [and] cough .. because they feel that society would reject them, ”he explained.
Despite the rise in the death toll, some citizens do not wear masks [Saurabh Sharma/Al Jazeera]“They brought the virus with them”
Official information about the death toll in the village is mixed. Asked about the increase in deaths in the village, Anshika Dikshit, the district administration chief published in Rae Bareli district, told Al Jazeera, “According to my information, people have died but not in the last two or three weeks, but in the last two months. Few deaths occurred as a result of COVID. the rest of the deaths were natural and in many cases people had comorbidities. “
However, Rae Bareli, the district’s chief medical officer, Dr. Virendra Singh, told Al Jazeera by phone that he knew of only four or five dead in the village – three of them as a result of COVID.
Many states in India have imposed strict blockades in the last month, while others have put restrictions on movement and closed cinemas, restaurants, pubs, schools, educational institutes and shopping malls.
An employee unloads oxygen cylinders at L2 hospital in Lal Ganje [Saurabh Sharma/Al Jazeera]
Brian Wahl, an epidemiologist at the International Health Department of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in New Delhi, says health infrastructure in rural areas of India is not equipped with such a surge in cases.
“We know that access to quality services in rural areas is a challenge and that these areas are dependent on primary health care workers. We know that a crowded gathering has the potential to be a very wide-ranging event,” he said.
Dr. Harjit Singh Bhatti, national president of the New Delhi Progressive Doctors & Scientists Forum (PMSF), agrees.
“Before, people used to come to cities in crisis, but now, seeing the number of cases increasing, they have nowhere to go. It is very sad that we will never know how many people have died and what has been the cause of their death, ”he explained.
“In the previous wave, the people of India were safe, but this time, due to the elections of the village councils and the Kumbh Mela festival. [which around 3.5 million people attended], COVID has reached the rural area “.
Bhatti believed that this situation could have been avoided and that many lives could have been saved if the decision had been taken at the time of postponing the elections.
“Elections strengthen democracy …. [But] people from big cities went to their villages to take advantage of the franchise and the virus also traveled with them and now we are seeing the result as a large number of deaths, ”he says.
“They said he was breathing asthma”
Meanwhile, in Sultanpur Khedan, another tragedy is happening. From street to street in the Gupta family home, a middle-aged woman in a gray net cries out under a straw hut outside the two-story house. He tries to console his 12-year-old grandson. They run away to the house when asked what is wrong.
But the woman’s son, 26-year-old Indrajeet Sahu, explained that her 52-year-old father, Ram Sajeevan Sahu, died on April 27.
“He got sick after the town council election,” Indrajeet explained.
“He had a high temperature and started complaining from April 23 onwards. Due to the temperature, he took the medication from the local pharmacy, but was advised to consult a doctor immediately.
Indrajeet Sahu and her mother outside the village house [Saurabh Sharma/Al Jazeera]
On April 25, the family took Ram Sajeevan Jatua to a community health center in the village. But the health center did not test him for COVID; the family says they don’t know why.
“The doctors gave him the medicine, saying he could breathe asthma, so we took the medicine and went back home. The problem continued and we heard that other hospitals in the area had no oxygen and he died at home on the morning of April 27,” Indrajeet says.
He explains that his father helped him carry the food cart on the street, but now that he is dead, Indrajeet only has to help the whole family financially.
“It is very painful to see your father die before your eyes. The more painful [thing is not being able to help him [in] in any way. There was no oxygen in the hospitals and things were very bad. Now my dad is gone, it looks like everything is gone, ”he says with tears in his eyes.
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