Ahmedabad: As Covid-19 cases rise exponentially across the country, people in the state of Gujarat suffer in silence. For many families, it’s an endless wait before they get a bed at a hospital or find a place for burial.
In Apnu Amdavad, the wait for an ambulance can get as long as up to 15 hours. And once you get an ambulance, the queue to get into a hospital is just as painstakingly long.
If the patient is lucky enough, they will get a bed and good care. If not, the endless wait continues. Relatives of Covid positive patients then have to frantically look for plasma donors, medicines and other facilities.
The queue doesn’t end here. Families of deceased Covid patients have to wait for hours outside morgues before they get bodies of their loved ones. As the city runs out of hearses, the dead are being carried in tempos and cars.
At crematoriums, the families are being asked to wait for up to 4 hours. As bereaved family members wait to cremate their loved ones, they say, “Ama kaunu vaank che? Smashan walo toh becharo 4 kalak thi kaam kare che (Whose fault is it ? The poor undertaker has been working for the last four hours).”
For relatives of the deceased, piling up the wooden pyre for their loved ones on their own is the only escape from the long queues.
After waiting for 5 hours, 55-year-old Makena Powella had to set up the wooden pyre for his uncle’s last rites.
He told ThePrint, “As per government orders, Covid bodies are supposed to be exhumed in the CNG-run electrical furnaces. I have been waiting since 1 pm for my turn, it has been five hours. How long do they expect me to wait? There is no undertaker to help or set up the pyre. I had to make the pyre myself, where is the dignity for families ? Why is the government harassing us?”
As bodies pile up and melting furnaces run non-stop in Ahmedabad’s crematoriums, another relative of a deceased tells ThePrint, “If this is the beginning of Kalyug, we don’t want to live to see the end.”
