Sunday, 27 April 2025
Sunday, 27 April 2025
Covid-19 patient Vidhya Devi, 70, should have been in emergency care at a hospital, but instead she lay on the backseat of a car outside a gurdwara, battling for breath, as she was connected to an oxygen tank on the street.
Sikh aid group Khalsa Help International has been buying small quantities of oxygen as and when it becomes available to help those in urgent need.
Cars, vans and rickshaws plying Covid-19 patients and their families choked the street outside the gurdwara in Ghaziabad on Saturday, as volunteers holding black oxygen cylinders spread out to help.
“I came here because I didn’t get help anywhere else,” said Manoj Kumar, who sat next to his mother Vidhya in the car. “I called the gurdwara and they asked me to reach here fast,” said Manoj.
A middle-aged woman in a van appeared to be palpitating as her adult son, holding her arm tried to keep her conscious, calling out: “Mummy? Mummy?”
In another van, a man lay unconscious on a car seat, legs stretching out of the door, as one volunteer vigorously rubbed his feet, while another pumped his chest to try to revive him.
Rummy, who is president of the gurdwara and founder of Khalsa Help International, said he began providing the service three days ago as cases started spiking in New Delhi.
“People are dying on the streets. That’s why we started this,” Rummy said.
