Death of a Covid-positive cop

Humanity dies when hospitals deny treatment to terminally ill patients. And it died several deaths Tuesday night when a Covid-stricken police constable gasping for breath was made to run from one hospital to another in the national capital. Indian bureaucracy is known to make taxpayers with legitimate grievances go around in circles, but government hospitals doing this to a policeman is a new low on the babudom’s scale of criminal negligence.

Amit Kumar, a constable attached to Bharat Nagar police station of north Delhi, most probably contracted the disease while on duty. When Kumar fell sick — with his wife and three-year-old child away at his hometown Sonepat in Haryana — he shifted to a colleague’s house, who in turn took Kumar first to a Covid centre Tuesday 7.30 am. The concept of a Covid centre ought to be to have a place to receive a patient with symptoms, test him and to further transfer him to a proper facility for treatment. But the Haiderpur centre shooed Kumar away to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Government Hospital, where they waited two and a half hours in vain. Then they moved to Deep Chand Bandhu Government Hospital, which pushed Kumar out again to a Covid centre at Ashok Vihar, where he was tested and sent back. All through the day, Kumar’s colleague could not get a single hospital to admit the patient, till a senior officer intervened and directed him to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in the night. But Kumar died on the way to the hospital at 8.30 pm.

A 32-year-old physically fit cop dying due to lack of medical attention in the seat of national power exemplifies all that is wrong with India’s public health system. In the recently held polls, the Delhi Chief Minister swept back to power claiming, among other things, the dramatic improvement in the city-state’s healthcare system with the launch of Mohalla Clinics. Well, Arun Kumar’s death is a reminder of what it is to be poor and sick in Delhi, dependent on Government Hospitals. A crisis is an opportunity to reform those systems that come under the maximum strain; but, alas, not for us.