There was a highly tense situation on Sunday morning when Madhukar Rainbow Children’s Hospital in south Delhi’s Malviya Nagar sent out an urgent SOS saying they were low on oxygen and it appeared there was no response to their pleas for oxygen but after the message, AAP’s Raghav Chadha stepped in and said that five oxygen cylinders have been arranged for the hospital.
Earlier, while not finding responses from respective governments, the New Zealand High Commissioner had sent out SOS calls for help on Twitter requesting anyone to help, and Congress Youth Leader Srinivas was also sent a plea for oxygen as the Congress party has set up urgent “help camps” to supply oxygen, medicines, and plasma for patients during the COVID pandemic due to the tremendous burden on the Indian medical system which appears to be crashing under the global coronavirus crisis.
Earlier the Embassy of the Philippines in Delhi reached out to Congress Youth Leader Srinivas for oxygen. While hospitals seemed to be banging through brick walls faced with unresponsiveness, the high commissioners, embassies intervened and reached out to the Congress party and other people for oxygen. The Congress party in particular has set up many camps to supply medicines, oxygen, plasma, etc.
Mr. Srinivas and his teams have helped the farmers, and during the COVID crisis serving around the clock. However, when the Philippines and New Zealand embassies reached out to him, the incident became amplified.
#SOSIYC members at Embassy of the Philippines in New Delhi. @indembmanila pic.twitter.com/IkvcKAtdR3
— Srinivas B V (@srinivasiyc) May 1, 2021
While the Center and some state governments have taken offense to help from citizens and other political parties which they feel makes them look incompetent, the truth is right now, it is all about saving lives, and ego should be relinquished during this eerie catastrophe.
While a certain chief minister even threatened to arrest citizens who raised up pleas for oxygen on social media which led to the Supreme Court on Friday stating that no state should clampdown information if citizens communicate their grievances on social media.
“It is a grave concern to me as a citizen or judge. If citizens communicate their grievances on social media, we do not want to clamp down on information. Let us hear the voices of citizens,” Justice DY Chandrahud said during the hearing in the top court.
About a week ago, 25 COVID positive patients had died at Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital due to low oxygen pressure.
The Delhi High Court yet again reprimanded the center on Saturday over the issue. “Water has gone above the head. You have to arrange everything now. You have made the allocations. You have to fulfill it. Eight lives have been lost. We can’t shut our eyes to it,” the high court said, referring to the loss of lives at Batra Hospital after the oxygen supply stopped for 80 minutes.
The government has raised the city’s daily quota from 490 metric tonnes to 590 metric tonnes (MT) even as the Arvind Kejriwal government asked for 970 MT. Governments say that oxygen supplies in hospitals are running out every three hours and the medical staff instead of having their efforts focused on treating patients are anxious and under great stress because of the shortage of oxygen.
In this situation, citizens and opposition parties are rising to the occasion and arranging for oxygen, medicines, and even plasma but the government instead of appreciating these efforts in the very deadly fatal pandemic which is monstrously taking away lives in increasing frequency are feeling insecure and more bothered about their image of incompetency. The government should realize that desperate times call for desperate measures and should welcome every bit of help and fight the battle against COVID together unitedly.
If a government works honestly for the people, they really do not have to be insecure because citizens sense hard work and sincerity, and such governments need not fear another party because they are deeply rooted and richly fruited.