New Delhi: India had a good opportunity to accelerate its vaccination drive but was unable to capitalise on it, according to the chief of Manipal Hospitals, the country’s second largest hospital chain.
If India had followed Covid-appropriate behaviour and vaccinated more people, “the onslaught of the second wave would have been of lesser extent”, said Dr H. Sudarshan Ballal, chairman of Manipal Health Enterprises, the group that owns Manipal Hospitals.
Earlier this year, India’s daily case count dipped to below 10,000 — the tally was recorded at 9,121 on 15 February — following a steady decline since September. However, the numbers shot up to record highs in April and May, with daily case tallies topping 4 lakh in the latter month before beginning to taper down.
In an interview to ThePrint, Ballal said “it was an exception that the world got vaccines against Covid-19 in just 10 months but, unfortunately, we were unable to capitalise on it”.
“When Covid-19 cases were down, we had a very good opportunity to accelerate the vaccination drive. We were not able to vaccinate a large number of people,” added Dr Ballal, a nephrologist who also serves as director of the Manipal Institute of Nephrology and Urology.
The top learning from the second wave, according to DrBallal, is “never let your guard down”.
“Just because Covid-19 was in decline, it was wrong to think that we had won against Covid-19,” he said. “We should always believe that the disease is lurking even if numbers are down. Letting (our) guard down was our first mistake.”
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‘Build paediatric healthcare infrastructure before third wave’
Speaking to ThePrint, Ballal said India needs to make preparations for the third wave by bolstering health infrastructure for children, who are yet to vaccinated.
India needs to prepare paediatric healthcare infrastructure, including special ICUs and emergency rooms for children, before the arrival of the third wave, he added in the interview, conducted over video-conferencing.
“I can barely think of any paediatric emergency rooms or intensive care units (ICUs) and high-dependency units (HDUs). Let alone peripheral cities or remote areas, even in cities and big hospitals, such facilities are not yet available,” said Ballal.
“Covid will keep coming back,” he added, saying the central government needs to implement the learnings from the second wave much faster than usual.
“The next wave will hit those who were not hit in the first and second waves. Now, the country needs to speed up the processes for bringing vaccines for kids and teens,” he said.
‘Gut-wrenching time for medical fraternity’
Dr Ballal started his career as a professor of medicine with St Louis University School of Medicine in the US. He has been conferred the fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, London for his contribution in Medicine.
The Covid crisis, Ballal said, is the most gut-wrenching time for the medical fraternity that he has seen in his five-decade career.
“This was the first time when we had to ration the treatment, where we had to choose the patient who is more likely to survive or eligible to get treatment. This is a very difficult decision for a doctor and no doctor should go through this again,” he added.
“The feeling of helplessness was worse… We were unable to offer any help to those who were in dire need such as people in emergency rooms or ambulances, waiting for a bed… We were unable to help our patients who were connected with us for the last 10-20 years.”
“Some were looking for help in finding medicines while others were gasping for breath, searching for oxygen,” he said. “We wanted to help everyone but the extent of the crisis was huge.”
Manipal Hospitals became the second-largest multi-speciality hospital chain in the country in terms of bed capacity after its acquisition of Columbia Asia this year. The first is Apollo Hospitals.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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