Each day the medical bulletin, issued by the Goa Health Department belts out numbers of the sick, the recovered and the dead like a cricket scorecard. When the death toll goes to below 50 and then 40 and then below 30 there are is mini rejoicing. Someone remarked, noticing the cruel irony in this, that Goa has recorded 39 deaths for three consecutive days. So can that be called flattening the curve?
Doesn’t anyone see the lives that are truly lost beyond those who are dead?
Of absolute untold shattering grief that nothing ever before. Of being stripped of basic dignity as they fight for their parents, grandparents, siblings and children. Of families, losing more than one member within hours, of families that are wiped out within weeks, of pregnant mothers dying, days after their baby shower, held to welcome the newborn.
For far too long, it’s been about numbers. Can we talk about hearts? Stone cold. Numb. Staring into nothingness. Yes, there have been deaths everywhere. But when you allow – and we keep repeating this – hordes to come in unchecked, have super spreader events like local elections, festivals and the continued functioning of casinos till statewide restrictions, where social distancing cannot be a natural reality; and then see multiple deaths in families, we need to ask, “Who pays?’ Can these deaths even be compensated?
When cases and deaths go down in numbers, let us not for a second forget what the last five to six weeks have left in its wake. Let no one dare claim any credit or brownie points for case and death reductions. Look at the living dead first. Each of these cases studied is confirmed and verified. But out of respect for the deceased and their living loved ones, we aren’t naming anyone
She is 36. A Panjim-based lawyer. Life couldn’t have been better. A loving husband, amazing in-laws who treated her like a child and a queen when hubby was abroad and loving parents and family. Her husband first got COVID and was admitted to GMC on April 21. Her in-laws who had recovered from COVID went through a lot of stress about their son’s illness. On May 1 the father-in-law passed on (his health just gave way and his heart gave in). Within a week, her mother-in-law too passed away, unable to bear the grief of her husband and a son who hadn’t recovered. The dance of death didn’t stop there. The young lawyer’s own father too died of COVID on May 13. All this while her husband was still battling to recover. On May 24, he too lost the battle literally wiping out her entire family.
Words fail. What does one say? What does one even write?
She was expecting her first child. And had a small baby shower gathering with very few close family members of this family with roots in Pernem taluka. She soon had the fever and the chills and got her positive report. Within days her condition turned for the worse. Two weeks ago she too lost her battle and left, with her unborn little one with her. Her brother rushed from Bombay where he works for her last rites. Before her funeral, their father, also fighting COVID and admitted to hospital was informed of his daughter’s death. He had an instant heart attack and collapsed. Dead. The next evening the man who lost his sister and father in two days clutched the hand of Dr Madhu Ghodkirekar, in charge of the South Goa Morgue and pleaded that he be allowed to cremate his father that evening instead of waiting for another day. When the doctor arranged for his funeral in Ponda, the boy finally broke down, his brave front collapsing in a well of tears
There are so many fragments of grief all adding up to a shower of deep sorrow.
A Goan from UAE returned home to Vasco to look after his COVID positive patients. Within days of his coming, he lost his father and then his mother. Then two brothers from Bicholim were admitted to GMC and the South Goa district hospital. Last week, the one in SGDH died at 9.30 am. While his body was getting lifted onto the hearse van to be sent to Bicholim, news came that his brother in GMC had died just then, at 11.30. The teams of both hospitals got together to arrange to send both the brothers, together home, their final journey together.
All we ask is this. Beyond checking numbers and then doing Court dictated activities to beef up facilities, but only just, has this government done the flowing?-
1) Has the Chief Minister or Health Minister called the families of those who have had such massive tragedies to express basic sympathy? Or is that reserved only for a special few, with absolute respect and commiserations to their families too?
2) Has the government owned up to its failure and not just an “error of judgment” but criminal negligence and announced a single paisa of compensation to any of these families. Though money doesn’t quite cut it, it might make a difference to many families to at least put their lives in some sort of an order
3) Most importantly, why isn’t the health administration humane, sensitive and caring in the grief-stricken wards and the ICU of the biggest hospital GMC from where stories of deaths during the dark hours have come out, but not stories of how every hour is a dark hour?
Cecille Rodrigues of Taleigao who has just lost her father says, “The ICU (of GMC) is a living morgue. There is no dignity. There are not even screens to change the diapers of our parents. And people are dying in full view of the rest.”
Nothing can ever get the living dead back from their grief. The Government of Goa should at the very least pay, both literally and figuratively. Announce compensation and restore dignity to the dying in your hospitals. And yes, look beyond numbers and see human beings.
