Rajeshwari Devi, had developed what is often a sidekick to COVID-19, pneumonia. This made her very sick, causing her to need to gasp in order to breathe. She called 911, as she was in need of a hospital bed and oxygen. But the hospital said, without her COVID report, they could not admit her. She spent almost 36 hours in an emergency room in the Northern Indian District Robertsganj. The staff at that Emergency Room told Devi’s family that they didn’t have room for her in the Emergency Room anymore, and that they were going to send her to the hospital, but they didn’t have an ambulance, or even a bed available for her. Her family was desperate. 

So they had a politician intervene, and ended up  getting Rajeshwari a bed in a hospital very far away from the Emergency Room they were at. India is going through a COVID crisis right now, which has made it nearly impossible to get a bed in a hospital. But even then he could not get an ambulance, because of Indians current condition. He couldn tget an ambulance for a woman hours away from dying. 

The desperate family hurriedly packed into their small car. But in the car, she did not have oxygen support. Her family hurried to the hospital, but it was far too late. Rajeshwari died in the car, minutes away from the hospital. Her death was caused by asphyxiation. 

My greatest condolences go to Ashish Aghrahari, her son, and all of Rajeshwari’s other family friends. Rajeshwari Devi’s story is a tragedy, and leads you to think, who is at blame for the 2nd wave of COVID 19 in India, and its disastrous effects on India’s people. In India there have been 26.9M covid cases, with more than half of these cases occurring during the 2nd wave. Some Indians have pointed the finger at India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Damodardas Modi. They do so because around when the 1st wave had ended, he held a massive political rally, full of people not following Social distancing guidelines. “In every direction, all I can see is people! You are wonderful!” Modi exclaimed to the crowd. That same day  234,692 new coronavirus cases 20 times more than its daily tallies from late January and early February. 

India’s COVID protocol is failing, because the second wave is hitting them, and Modi, along with the rest of the Indian government, had no idea how to handle it, causing the second wave to spike just as high as the first. This has made hospitals in India very full and causes a lot of preventable deaths, like the death of Rajeshswari Devi.