As Sushil Kumar Srivastava’s breathing sensation worsened, his family wrapped the 70-year-old in a car and drove him to a hospital in the state capital of northern Uttar Pradesh, India, where he tested positive. for coronavirus.
After the private hospital removed the retired government official because he had no vacancies, his son Ashish brought two oxygen cylinders and drove his father to a hospital that could admit him.
“All hospitals have requested a referral letter from the chief physician’s office (CMO),” Ashish said, referring to the city’s top health official, with about 3.5 million people.
At the office, Ashish said no one helped him. “I was chased away by the police,” he said when he tried to meet with the CMO.
Three days later, Ashish said someone in the government called him to offer a bed for his father – a day after Srivastava died at a private clinic.
The family’s ordeal reflects the worsening of the COVID-19 crisis in Uttar Pradesh, where people are struggling with bureaucracy and disease.
To get a COVID-19 bed in Lucknow, families say they need to show the result of an RT-PCR test, which is already in small quantities.
Patients are then required to register at the CMO office, which then forwards the request to the Integrated Command Control Center for COVID Management, which makes the final bed allocation, a government official said.
A state government spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday that authorities plan to end the CMO referral system this week and instead appoint officials at each COVID-19 hospital to assess whether a patient should be hospitalized.
The difficult process has been criticized, including by the state’s Human Rights Commission, which has called on the government to drop the referral rule.
“There are expert doctors in hospitals who can decide whether the patient should be hospitalized or not,” the commission said on Tuesday. “This letterhead system is not required.”
Already becoming the country hardest hit by the pandemic, India has seen more than 200,000 new cases of COVID-19 daily in the past seven days, marking the strongest rise in the world this month and there is still no sign that the second wave of infections they will reach maximum soon.
In Uttar Pradesh, home to 200 million people, infections are rising by more than 22,000 cases daily, severely affecting its shrinking health system.
The state government has said it is turning several hospitals into COVID-only facilities and adding more beds. He did not answer Reuters questions.
CERTAIN HELP
At the CMO office in Lucknow, adjacent to two large hospitals, dozens of people line up daily, begging, begging and sometimes crying for a cover letter needed for hospitalizations.
This week, local TV news channels aired images of a young man lying on the road to block the CMO car in his desperation to receive a letter for a sick relative.
Patients should have an RT-PCR test to confirm the infection before receiving a referral letter.
But these tests are increasingly difficult to access for most patients, with long queues outside hospitals and clinics overburdened with growing infections.
“Performing an RT-PCR in UP is almost impossible,” said journalist Shreya Jai, whose family members had to wait a week for a rapid antigen test.
Many laboratories in Lucknow work with less than half of their staff, the rest sick with the virus, a lab worker said, asking not to be named.
The state government said nearly 230 private and state-run laboratories were being used to test the coronavirus.
On Monday, the state government led by Yogi Adityanath, who himself is currently with COVID-19, was criticized for managing the crisis by a regional court.
“It is a pity that, although the government knew of the magnitude of the second wave, it never planned things in advance,” the Allahabad State High Court said.
In the Srivastava household, in a middle-class neighborhood in the center of Lucknow, there is anger and sadness after the cremation of the head of the family.
“I blame the officers in the air-conditioned rooms for the death of my father,” said Ashish, 39, who is now positive for COVID-19.
Our standards: Thomson Reuters’ principles of trust.