Woman carries husband’s dead body in rickshaw

New Delhi: There have been several stories of men, women, children and the aged suffer and undergo weak moments ever since the coronavirus surfaced but the heart-wrenching visuals of a woman forced to hold on to her husband’s dead body in an e-rickshaw as she could not afford an ambulance in a way has driven home the point of sheer helplessness.

What is even more painful is the hardship she undergoes as she struggles to keep the body upright by tying it to the frame inside the rickshaw.

The family had to finally take the help of an e-rickshaw to transport the dead body as no ambulance driver was ready and the family could not afford to pay.

The son alleged that his father was unable to get a bed and treatment. The family is from Ferozabad. UP is one of the worst-affected states in India and on Tuesday, 30,000 new cases were reported and 285 deaths in 24 hours.

It is among 10 states to account for over 73 per cent of all cases reported on Monday.In the meanwhile, state government officials have been stating that there is no shortage of oxygen cylinders.

Till date, the pandemic has killed more than two lakh people in India. In another heart-breaking incident, a 35-year-old woman died in a parking lot of a govt-run hospital in UP’s Noida even as her attendant was begging for a bed. This incident happened on Saturday.

There have been several incidents of people succumbing within minutes at entrances of hospitals, in parking lots, in parks close to hospitals and within the hospital premises waiting for beds.

Last week a woman was running from pillar to post in a Delhi hospital pleading the authorities to admit her mother but in vain and she died for want of oxygen. The visuals of a woman giving CPR to her Covid-positive husband inside an auto-rickshaw who died just outside the hospital went viral and is fresh in people’s minds.

Then there was a man in Agra who strapped his father’s body on a Honda sedan as no ambulance was available. In rural areas of Karnataka, people carried patients on make-shift bamboo rafts.