A mother-of-two gasped her last breath in a hospital car park after waiting three hours for a bed as the world’s worst Covid-19 crisis rips through India.
Jagriti Gupta, 35, gulped for air in a Suzuki 4×4 as friends begged staff for help but medics only arrived after she stopped breathing.
A harrowing video clip shows her slumped in her seat outside the state-run GIMS hospital in Noida on Thursday heaving wheezing breaths.
“I was standing right there as her landlord ran around, asking for help. But no one listened to him. Around 3:30 pm, she collapsed. When the landlord ran to the reception to report that she is no longer breathing, the staff rushed outside and declared her dead,” Sachin, an eyewitness, told NDTV.
It was just one tragedy to shock the world’s second largest nation as a world record of more than 400,000 new infections and 3,500 deaths were recorded in a single day.
India is home to 1.4 billion people and has now seen 212,000 die, many in a devastating second wave of the virus. Only Brazil, Mexico and the US have logged more – America has recorded more than 500,000.
(Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A tweet like 132,000 times on Twitter from Dr Sohil Makwana offered a grim reminder of the impact health staff are under.
The two images show him in full PPE and drenched in sweat following a shift on an overflowing Covid wards.
He said: “Talking on the behalf of all doctors and health workers.. we are really working hard away from our family.. sometimes a foot away from positive patient, sometimes an inch away from critically ill oldies… I request please go for vaccination.. it’s only solution! Stay safe.”
India, which is the world’s largest vaccine producer, is desperately seeking to step up its jabs programme but many places are warning of severe shortages and hundreds have been seen queueing at centres in some states.
Meanwhile a fire ripped through a hospital killing 16 patients and two healthcare workers in Bharuch, in the country’s western state of Gujarat.
The inferno at the Patel Welfare Covid Hospital is under investigation.
It was the second deadly hospital blaze in just over a week after 13 died in Mumbai.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
And in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, one family was left reeling after buying oxygen for a critically ill mother only for police to be accused of confiscating it to give to a VIP. The woman died hours later two hours later.
The police vehemently denied the allegation, saying the cylinder – which had been bought as the hospital had none left – was empty, but video circulating online showed one of the woman’s sons on his hands and knees crying and begging officers for mercy.
About 10% of the population has had one jab and 1.5% a second but amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vow to vaccination every over 18 many states, such as second-most populous Maharashtra which is home to Mumbai, said they did not have the supply.
The city’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said: “We hope that we will get vaccines tomorrow or the day after … I ask you to please not queue up at vaccination centres on Saturday.”
Supplies have been flown in from the UK and US, with 400 oxygen cylinders arriving on Friday, but there is still an acute lack of oxygen, beds and medicine.
Bodies are piling up and people are dying in the streets outside overcrowded hospitals while Indian Premier League cricket games are played yards away.
The lucrative league ends this month but the highly-paid Australian players are stranded as their country has banned anyone from entering from India, with those breaking the rules facing jail.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Bodies are being cremated around the clock in cities like Mumbai and Delhi, with mourners reading their relative’s last rites while dressed in biohazard suits.
Meanwhile hospitals are under armed guards to protect oxygen supplies.
In some areas as much as 50% of the population are said to have tested positive with 18,762,976 cases in total, according to the John Hopkins University tracker.