‘As human tragedy unfolds, there is a shortage of everything — oxygen, drugs, beds, vaccines, even cremation space...
“We have collapsed, Maharashtra is sinking and other states will follow.” The starkness of these words from Dr Jalil Parkar, a top pulmonologist in Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital, silenced me in a way that little has through 2020 and 2021, when most of my journalistic energy has been spent on reporting the Covid crisis on the ground. “This is worse than World War Two,” Parkar said, lashing out in rage and hurt at how doctors and health workers are still targeted by angry and distraught families as well as armchair commentators “who sit behind their laptops and in their ivory towers”.
Read here (Hindustan Times, Apr 17, 2021)