- With 24 hours notice, I flew from New York to New Delhi to help my father care for sick family members.
- My grandmother's condition began to worsen and we had to find an available hospital bed, but there were very few options.
- In the week since I arrived in
India , I lost friends and family members - all I could do was write condolence messages. - Amitoj Singh is a New York-based journalist who has previously been principal anchor and
news editor at India's New Delhi Television. - This is an
opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
In the span of 24 hours, two of my friends lost their fathers to India's COVID crisis.
It was that fear for my father's life that made me pack my bags and leave New York within a day's notice.
It was April 24 and New York was coming back - you could feel it. The sun was shining that glorious Saturday. I woke up, donned my running shoes, grabbed my headphones, and without checking my overnight messages, took off for a run around the Central Park reservoir. Midway through the run, I got a rare call from my dad's sister. I would call her back. But then a feeling nagged me so I called my dad. He answered like he always did whatever the situation.
"Ya Johnny," as he calls me. Not waiting to hear my reply, I heard him ask my 93-year-old grandmother to keep her mask on. "Don't you want to get well?" I stayed quiet for a moment.
"Dad, do you have COVID?" I interrupted.
"I may have. I don't know. I haven't been able to get a test yet. I've been kind of sick for the past few days. But everyone here is sick. I'll call you back." He needed to give someone medicine.
He was taking care of his cousin and mother at their house in a town called Paonta Sahib, a five-hour drive from New Delhi, India.
Over the next half hour, I learned that COVID had hit my family in three separate households. I knew I needed to help my father, and since I was fully vaccinated, I decided to fly back to India.
From a city that survived to a country in crisis
As a breaking news journalist for the past 10 years, I'm used to packing my bags quickly and leaving for a new destination. But, this time was different. I was leaving New York after having survived the worst of the city's crisis, after avoiding getting the virus for more than a year. It felt like the
"What will you be able to do? You don't understand. The moment you exit the airport, you will get the virus. It's in the air. It's everywhere," warned my brother-in-law urging me to not come. His mother and grandmother had been infected in the same house.
On the plane, I overheard a number of my fellow double-masked passengers asking about the health of loved ones back home.
"What are the oxygen levels?"
"I should be home in about 15 hours. Do we need a hospital bed yet?"
After landing in India, I entered our family home. My father spoke to my grandmother, "Look who has come. He's come from America to be with you." Even the oxygen mask couldn't hide her happiness at seeing me. But for me, there was no time to feel joy, relief, or family warmth, only the slow build-up of shock - an unbelievable realization that a crisis I thought was over, was very much alive.
My family house looked like a hospital. Medicine, defibrillators, an IV line set up, an oxygen concentrator, and medical supplies crowded the rooms. My father was performing a non-stop schedule of cooking, measuring oxygen and blood pressure levels, seeking the advice of doctors, giving medicine, updating the rest of the family, and constantly planning the next move - which hospital has a bed we can take her too?
Three other members of the family had COVID too.
Still jet-lagged, I settled into the night shift to look after my grandmother. She would unknowingly take off her oxygen mask and I would put it back on to keep her blood oxygen levels stable. When she took it off, her oxygen levels shot down. So far, I was winning. I just had to gently hold her hand through the night.
"It's in the air. It's everywhere."
By now, COVID had brutalized India.
Horror stories were emerging. A baby had starved for two days, while his mother lay dead from COVID beside him. Bodies washed up on the banks of India's most holy river, the Ganges. Snake-shaped queues of bodies waiting outside cremation sites sent a chill down the spine. India had become the only nation to pass 400,000 cases and 3,500 deaths in one day. Experts believed, in reality, deaths and infections were likely three to five times more.
News of the death of a family elder, a loving grand-uncle, rocked us. He had been as close to me as a grandfather. Speaking to friends and family, I learned COVID was in every household.
A former colleague, in his 30s, dead.
A friend's grandfather, dead.
A friend's wife, a mother to two young kids, dead.
Chasing hospital beds
In all of this, my grandmother's condition was worsening. My father decided it was time to get her to a hospital bed. One was available three hours away in a small town in the hills of the North Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The ambulance arrived, but the medical staff refused to touch my grandmother for fear of contracting the virus. We had to transport her to the ambulance ourselves. Midway to the hospital, the oxygen supply malfunctioned temporarily.
Upon arrival, two doctors outside the COVID-dedicated facility spoke to my father. They were impatient, frustrated, and immediately cited their doubts. They didn't think a 93-year-old could survive. They didn't want to take responsibility for another death. They said maybe it's better if we took her back home.
Moments before our arrival, a 38-year-old man had died within seconds of entering the premises. They hadn't even been able to take him out of the ambulance. My father assured the doctor, my grandmother was a fighter. She had no comorbidities at 93 - we expected she would live past 100 easily. They allowed her to be admitted.
But their frustration was justified. The hospital itself was inadequate; it didn't have ventilators, a laboratory for basic diagnostic tests, a CAT scan, resuscitation equipment, or an ICU. Even oxygen was rationed between 32 patients as there were only nine regulators. Two of the four government-appointed attendants had not been paid in five months.
We had to recalibrate. We couldn't take my grandmother to Delhi or any other nearby town. We couldn't take her back home because my father had given our oxygen concentrator to a friend in an emergency, thinking there would be oxygen at the hospital. We tried to find an open hotel for the night. We found one, but they required negative COVID tests and we didn't have any.
They allowed us to sit in their restaurant to have tea. Eventually the owner came out. He happened to know my grandmother from her work as a social worker in the area. He explained the situation.
"It's horrible. I suggest you drive back. You can't do anything. You can keep track of what's happening by video-calling the doctor regularly."
On our drive back, my father made dozens of calls to find a bed in a better medical facility. We had no luck; there were no beds anywhere. The next day we were able to find accommodation near the hospital, so we drove back to be near my grandmother. The rest of my family scrambled to find oxygen in case she needed to come home.
After three days, the doctor was prepared to discharge my grandmother. She was heard mumbling "take me back home." Her oxygen levels were stable, and we were told she was "COVID-free." The doctor even posted a picture with her on social media, proud of having treated a 93-year-old patient. She was looking better.
The crisis is not over
Despite the positive signs, 24 hours later, after an irregular heartbeat sent us to a local hospital and home again since we couldn't find space in an ICU, my grandmother died as she passed over the threshold into her house. She had died the way she wanted, in her own home.
In the week since I arrived in India, I lost friends and family members. I tried to help with oxygen and finding hospital beds, but in the end, all I could do was write out condolence messages.
Back in the US, I saw friends moving on from the pandemic - most of them had been vaccinated, extra doses were everywhere, New York was opening up, and selfies of joyful reunions adorned my media platforms.
In India, I was under lockdown. I couldn't step outside. I was still trying to get my parents fully vaccinated, still trying to help friends and acquaintances get beds, oxygen, and vaccines. I was reliving the pandemic.
While the US is moving on, the pandemic still rages in India. Four days ago, on May 18, India recorded 4,529 COVID deaths, the pandemic's highest single daily death toll in any country so far.