Ujjain: India is in a severe grip of the second wave of the corona. There is no appreciable decrease in patients despite so many efforts of the government, administration, people and NGOs.
Why all the efforts are futile. Who are those making it a hurdle race? Is it the greed that is creating a panic? A Uttarakhand-based spurious drug-making racket was busted recently in April mid. In an year the racket manufactured and sold spurious Covid-19 drugs worth Rs 5 crore in more than 13 states.
Covid-19 patient’s quest for survival begins from getting a bed in a hospital. The next being getting medicine in time, preferably ORIGINAL. If the original drug is available then ditching black marketeers proves to be the next hurdle. Several black-market rackets in corona drugs have been busted across the country. Patients have to cross each of these hurdles.
The hurdles and rackets are numerous including fake injections which contain water or glucose in place of the drug. The patients and their kin must also deal with the scarcity of oxygen as the hospital management and all their so-called efficient and qualified staff is unable to procure it for their patients. The patient must be ready to escape a fire, given the recent incidents reported from across the country. A patient must be capable of surviving without an oxygen cylinder in case the ward boy forgets to change the empty cylinder. The patient’s hurdle race seems to be endless. Those who fail to finish the race take up a new journey to heaven which proves to be more certain given the state of affairs.
Delhi High Court has noted that humanity has ended in the backdrop of a thriving black market of oxygen cylinders, concentrator and essential drugs. In Indore, a person was arrested for selling Tocilizumab injections for a whopping Rs 2.5 lakh. In Delhi, a factory, which was converting cylinders of fire hydrants into oxygen cylinders, was busted.
With each passing day, newer instances of fleecing innocent victims of corona and their kin are coming to the fore. Recently an oxygen concentrator racket was busted in Delhi.
Corruption and over-billing have even made their way to the crematorium. Instances of ambulances swindling the needy and fake injections of Remdesivir being sold for Rs 1 lakh are being reported from across the country. Among the most saddening of the inputs pertains to a racket in reselling coffins of corona victims.
Shameless greed and the cold-blooded quest for profiting at the cost of the helpless needy have weakened the fight against the corona pandemic crisis which has brought the whole system on its knees.
For the nation’s sake, this is the time to pitch in with our best. If the pandemic does not end, then those profiting from it are bound to get affected by it one day. If not from the law, they should be afraid of god and should stop playing with the lives of innocent people.
For now, it seems that it is not that we fear corona less but it is the corruption that we love more. The collective consciousness of the society has embraced corruption and is kotowing to their ways.
One must reflect, what is more, contagious and harmful- corona in a just society or corona in society which is already plagued with corruption, black marketing, greed, unethical practices and conspicuous degradation of human values among other vices. Can any vaccine save us unless we do not vaccinate society against the prevailing lust for materialistic gains? Greed is already pandemic and the corona pandemic is just fueling it and exposing it. Will the government act against the actual pandemic?
Author Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, is the Professor and Head,
Physics Department, Government Girls College, Ujjain
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