A story of scrambling for resources for an ailing grandmother amidst Delhi’s huge shortage of oxygen, hospital beds and COVID medicines

I woke up one Tuesday to messages requesting leads for oxygen cylinders, ICU beds, Remdesivir injections and plasma donors. Honestly, I had half a mind to go back to sleep and never open my social media again.

My morning routine soon shifted from freshening up and enjoying a cup of coffee to opening WhatsApp and looking for online resources, and making calls pleading for essential supplies that were going to mean life or death for someone. This was Delhi’s second wave.

This Tuesday, I was looking for an oxygen cylinder for a colleague’s relative. I came across a post claiming availability of cylinders. I rang up the number, and on the other side was a teenager, not more than 15 or 16 years of age. He didn’t have any resources but offered to help, probably because I sounded panicked. I texted him on WhatsApp and that began our journey of scrambling for supplies. He’d send me some numbers. I would make calls, hoping with every ring that someone would answer it. Most didn’t, but some did, and I quickly forwarded them along to my colleague.

She was lucky. She procured a cylinder for her relative who was in a critical condition. I thanked the boy, and he asked me to stay in touch, and exchange leads if I got any. He was volunteering to help all those he could. We didn’t bother introducing ourselves – it was a life and death situation we were dealing with; still are.

My phone rang. It was my mother. Crying, panicking and absolutely scared, she told me that my grandmother’s oxygen saturation level had dropped, and she needed to be hospitalised immediately. They live in Delhi and I live in Ghaziabad. All I could do was make more calls.

Four days later, we managed to get her a bed in Greater Noida. Four days. Four days for an 84-year old woman, whose oxygen saturation level was at 80. In the interim, we had managed to arrange for oxygen at home which had stabilized her oxygen levels to some extent.

I was lucky. I got a hospital bed and oxygen.

With pre-existing anxiety and depression, the stress was unbearable. Thankfully, my grandmother is fully recovered and at home now.

The second wave has been a desperate scramble for supplies. It has been a scramble for oxygen, beds, medicines, injections, crematoriums. A scramble for our loved ones. For those alive to recover and those dead to depart respectfully.