Bihar: Kin of Covid victims struggle to find hearse for their dear ones in Bettiah

BETTIAH: Giving a morbid competition to the Manhattans on the IPL score sheet graphs, the Covid figures are surging menacingly across the state. West Champaran recorded a whopping 1,002 Covid positive cases on Thursday.
“The total number of active cases in the district has risen to 2,007 till last evening,” civil surgeon Arun K Sinha said on Thursday, adding, “Of the 163 active containment zones in the district, 99 are in rural areas.Urban clusters account for 64 containment zones,” he said.
While the majority of Covid-positive patients are being advised home isolation, the stream of serious patients to the Government Medical College, though seeing some discharges on recovery to the satisfaction of the stressed medical teams on duty, is also resulting in mortalities.
With the death of five patients on Thursday, the reported death toll in West Champaran has risen to 23. This excludes cases like that of Irshad Ali Rizvi, a Bettiah civil court clerk who succumbed while quarantined at his home in Muzaffarpur. The Bettiah Civil Court was closed when a large number of employees tested positive and the court premises was feared to have become a super spreader. Since then, two lawyers and an advocate-clerk have succumbed to the virus.
The descent of hapless concern into grief amongst the kin of the Covid patients was heart-wrenching outside the dedicated Covid ward at the GMC on Thursday that saw five deaths within hours. Eyewitnesses said the relatives of the deceased were running from pillar to post in search of a hearse.
As Sushil Mahto(45) was lying wrapped in a body bag, Mani Bhushan Mahto-the deceased’s son in law- was seen frantically making phone calls. “He had just returned from Delhi. I admitted him on Tuesday. Now I am unable to find an ambulance to carry his body for last rites,” the kin told reporters outside the hospital. Similar tales unfolded for the next of kin of Saraswati Devi (50) and Baby Kumari Chauhan (35).
Baby Kumari’s wailing husband, Amit Singh, held on to Arnav, his four-year-old son. Reporters helped him with official phone numbers but phones were difficult to reach. “DM sahib ka phone laga par hamari baat sun kar koi jawab nahin diye,” he cried. “We arranged for an ambulance for his wife’s funeral as soon as DM informed me,” hospital superintendent Pramod K Tiwary told this reporter.
“Dead bodies are being kept in body bags at the hospital mortuary till hearse and officials are available to accompany the family for the funeral as per Covid protocol,” Tiwary said, adding, the hospital has just one mortuary van. “We have to arrange ambulances if there are more bodies as it is today,” he said.
When this reporter repeatedly tried the hospital manager’s number, a poignant Bollywood number played out in an ironically macabre twist: “Barbaadiyon ka sog manana fizul tha, barbadiyon ka jashn manata chala gaya...” (It was useless to rue one’s ruin, so kept on celebrating ruination).
A WHO Block-level worker, Sachin Agarwal, admitted his 62-year-old mother Chandar Devi to a private hospital five days ago. “But the ventilator there began failing and I rushed to admit Ma in GMC yesterday,” he said over the phone adding that his mother’s oxygen level hovered around 80.
“A doctor came and started the ventilator yesterday. Today another doctor came on the round in the morning but no doctor has visited since then,” he rued, claiming that he was able to get his mother’s treatment going only after reaching out to the local MLA and Bihar’s deputy CM Renu Devi. On Thursday evening, just before filing this report, Sachin again took this reporter’s call. “Sir, Ma died around 1 pm. I am waiting for an ambulance to perform her last rites,” his voice was choked.
Late on Thursday afternoon, school teacher Samuel Ghimire (46) became the day’s fifth casualty at the Bettiah hospital. His wife, Eda (42), was left alone in her own battle for survival in the Covid ward.