Rising number of infections and deaths due to COVID-19 have had little effect on people or the government of Bihar. The state government’s failure to take the pandemic seriously is evident in the state capital itself. Crowded streets and people flouting physical distancing norms (see photos) are a common sight in Patna. It is also rare to find people using masks properly.
Bihar’s health minister Mangal Pandey, however, believes that the situation is under control. A threemember central team headed by Joint Secretary (Health) Lav Agarwal, the minister claimed, had expressed satisfaction at the steps taken! Media reports, however, suggest that the central team asked the state government to pull up its socks, increase testing and improve facilities in the hospitals.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar reported feeling ill in the first week of July. He was tested for COVID-19 and the report was delivered the same day. It turned out to be negative. But most other people have not been so lucky. In a large number of cases, test reports have been delivered after patients passed away. In an equally large number of cases, test reports seem to have been delivered without obtaining the sample in the first place!
• A group of journalists in Patna, says a facebook post by Kumar Saurabh, went to a government hospital in Patna for the COVID test. They filled up the forms on July 20 and waited. But when their samples were not collected even after two hours, the group left the hospital to cover an assignment. But the test reports were delivered to them and they were declared ‘negative’.
• In Katihar four people filled up forms and waited. But their samples too were not collected. They went back home. But the very next day police picked them up, saying that their test reports were positive, and they were dumped in an isolation centre.
Hospitals in Patna are clearly illequipped to deal with the situation. Director of Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Dr N.R.Biswas, was treated at AIIMS, Patna when he fell ill and reported positive. City based Dr Manoj Kumar’s brother died without treatment. Dr Kumar drove his brother to several hospitals in the city but either beds or ventilators were not available. Bank of India employee Vikram Pratap too failed to get admission in any government hospital and finally died in a private hospital.
Quips Dr. (Captain) Dilip Sinha, an Orthopaedic surgeon with his own clinic after retiring from Patna Medical College & Hospital (PMCH), “All the hospitals in Patna are manned by my students and I am naturally known to most of the doctors in the city. But if I am taken ill, I know that I will not get any care anywhere. I will either recover on my own or the virus will get me.”The capital city shows little shock over the conditions. Even the rape of a minor girl in the isolation ward of the largest hospital in the state does not appear to have moved many.
Om Prakash Prasad from the chief minister’s home district of Nalanda was admitted to AIIMS, Patna on June 27 and passed away the very next day. The test report was delivered three days after his death on July 1. His is not an isolated case. There is a long list of such people whose test reports have come after their death.
While the public health system in the state, never quite strong, has collapsed, the state government’s failure to even communicate to the people the gravity of the situation is disheartening. So is the failure to enforce the lockdown and physical distancing norms.At the moment, it is a free for all in Bihar, which can be said to be in a free fall.
