Desperate people in India have been begging for help on social media as their country is ravaged by coronavirus and their health care system reaches breaking point.
Social media is overwhelmed with appeals for oxygen, hospital beds or a place in an ICU for loved ones in need of life saving care.
“I don’t want to lose my mom now,” wrote Dr Ajay Koli, “Please help me in getting an oxygen cylinder” while Kritika Gayatri pleaded for plasma for a 26-year-old “who won’t survive without it”.
Many have been leaving their phone numbers in the hope someone will reach out and help as the Covid crisis spirals out of control.
Disturbing images from the country have shown bodies burned in the street as makeshift crematoriums are set up to deal with the number of deaths.
(Image: REUTERS)
India’s new coronavirus infections hit a record peak for a fifth day on Monday, as countries including Britain, Germany and the United States pledged to send urgent medical aid to help its overwhelmed hospitals.
Infections in the last 24 hours rose to 352,991, with overcrowded hospitals in Delhi and elsewhere turning away patients after running out of supplies of medical oxygen and beds.
Aditi Agrawal tweeted: “Need an oxygen cylinder for my friend’s grandmother in West Delhi. Please DM or reply with leads.”
Another plea for help, from Sayantan Ghosh, says: “HYDERABAD: Urgently need plasma for a critical patient, lungs 70% damaged, needs immediate help. Please amplify.”
(Image: Getty Images)
(Image: REUTERS)
Speaking on Good Morning Britain about the dire situation in India, journalist Nilanjana Bhowmick said: “I think there is a lot of panic that’s happening at the moment as well.
“The government from the very beginning of the second surge have blamed it on the people.
“Can you really blame the people when they know they have no access to anything?
“They are left on their own. They are going on social media.
“They are asking for help they are not even pulling strings, they are merely asking for help. Please help us with leads, with anything you can do.”
She added: “We are sending out desperate pleas into the universe hoping that someone will come to the rescue.”
A spokesman for the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in the capital, New Delhi said: “Currently the hospital is in beg-and-borrow mode and it is an extreme crisis situation.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier urged all citizens to get vaccinated and exercise caution, while hospitals and doctors put out urgent notices saying they were unable to cope with the rush of patients.
(Image: REUTERS)
(Image: REUTERS)
In some of the worst-hit cities, including New Delhi, bodies were being burnt in makeshift facilities offering mass services.
Television channel NDTV broadcast images of three health workers in the eastern state of Bihar pulling a body along the ground on its way to cremation, as stretchers ran short.
“If you’ve never been to a cremation, the smell of death never leaves you,” Vipin Narang, a political science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, said on Twitter.
“My heart breaks for all my friends and family in Delhi and India going through this hell.”
(Image: Getty Images)
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
On Sunday, President Joe Biden said the United States would send raw materials for vaccines, medical equipment and protective gear to India.
Germany joined a growing list of countries pledging to send supplies.
India, with a population of 1.3 billion, has an official tally of 17.31 million infections and 195,123 deaths, after 2,812 deaths overnight, health ministry data showed, although health experts say infections and deaths are probably far higher.