Delhi Faces Shortage Of Ambulances As COVID-19 Quarantine Deaths Surge In The Capital
As the number of COVID cases and deaths increase in the national capital, the state is continuously facing new challenges each day. Now, a non-profit medical service in the capital grapples due to lack of ambulances amid surging quarantine deaths.
Ferried 25 bodies in a month
The group has ferried up to 25 such bodies a day this month, compared to about three earlier. While infections and fatalities have slowed in India since a mid-September peak, Delhi is going in the opposite direction.?
Before the novel coronavirus engulfed India, the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal helped cremate the unclaimed bodies of homeless people and others. This month, ambulance team has been flooded with calls from families of those dying at home after quarantining for COVID-19.?
India has reported 9.3 million infections so far, the world's second-highest after the United States, with more than 1,35,000 fatalities.
From the pandemic's start, Delhi has encouraged home isolation for non-severe patients to reduce the burden on local hospitals that also serve two surrounding states.
How bad Delhi's situation is?
The Delhi government does not regularly release data on home isolation deaths and hasn't even responded?for comment, as per news reports.
Currently, more than 23,000 people are recovering at home in Delhi, which has been recording a total of around 100 deaths a day this month and more than 5,000 infections. ?The ambulance team that comprises of one Jitender Singh Shunty and three of his coworkers, claims last rituals of many patients who died of the infection were done by them.
The team also believes many home deaths are going unrecorded, because his team alone has been picking up around a dozen bodies a day from just one area of Delhi.? ?
After many Delhi hospitals ran out of critical-care beds this month, the federal government flew in army doctors and nurses, and squeezed more beds into hospitals.?Delhi government officials say many isolation and critical-care beds are now available.
Delhi has 431 ambulances available and 200 cabs at present out of which 211 of those ambulances are hired from the state of Uttar Pradesh.
