NEW DELHI: The grieving wife of a senior doctor at the LNJP Hospital, who died battling COVID-19, on Monday said her husband was a man with a fighting spirit and that is how she "will remember him".
Dr Aseem Gupta, 52, served in the frontline of the war against the pandemic at the COVID-only government facility, and died of the novel coronavirus infection in an ICU of a private hospital on Sunday.
But it wasn't just him who had tested positive for COVID-19, his wife, also a doctor, suffered the same fate.
"We both tested positive on June 2, and initially had mild symptoms so were quarantined at home. But, then the moment we realised our condition was not good, we shifted to hospitals. So my husband was initially at LNJP Hospital and then he was moved to Max Hospital, Saket," Dr Nirupama Attreya said.
She said both of them had fever, her's came down but not his, and his condition worsened so much, "we lost him".
"But he was a fighter and a COVID-19 hero. He died fighting COVID-19, and I will remember him for his fighting spirit," Attreya told PTI.
Gupta was a Specialist, Grade I, in the Department of Anesthesia at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital, a dedicated COVID-19 facility under the Delhi government which recently completed 100 days of being declared a COVID-only hospital.
He died in the ICU of Max Hospital, Saket after battling COVID-19 for weeks.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore to Gupta's family, and said the society has "lost a very valuable fighter".
The chief minister said that Gupta's wife had contracted COVID-19 too, but has now recovered.
"This morning Health Minister Satyendar Jain called and then Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal did, and both were asking me how it happened," she said.
Jain himself recently recovered from COVID-19 after being administered plasma therapy at the Max Hospital recently.
Besides his wife, who works as a radiologist at a hospital in Noida, Gupta is survived by two sons, one working in Australia and other pursuing MBBS in India.
"My elder son Akshat lives in Sydney, he is as a software engineer. He couldn't even come for his father's funeral, such is the COVID-era life now. My younger son Aryan, 20, is in second year of the MBBS at a medical college in Dehradun. But he's in Delhi since the lockdown happened," Attreya said.
My son will complete his education and become a doctor like his father was, she said.
She said Gupta belonged to Moradabad and she was from Bhopal, and they "got married in 1990".
Asked about his hobbies, Attreya said "he was very social, he liked to go to parties and mingle with people".