While people across India scramble for Covid-19 vaccines and struggle to get appointments for themselves booked on the CoWIN portal, the Congress government of Rajasthan is leading the way and showing other states how they can inoculate entire populations almost seamlessly. Such is the confidence being exuded by the authorities in Rajasthan, that even the dead have begun receiving vaccinations against Covid-19. So what if people presently alive continue to die due to a lack of vaccines? The Rajasthan government seems to have it all under control.
According to a Patrika report, one Praveen Gandhi, whose father and mother both passed away in 2014 and 2015 respectively has received messages on phone numbers registered in their names congratulating them for getting successfully inoculated with the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Praveen Gandhi was shocked to receive the messages saying that his parents had been inoculated. The question which must be asked is this, are dead people in Rajasthan being given vaccines as part of some scam underway in the Congress-ruled state?
Rajasthan managed to vaccinate even the dead. What an achievement. pic.twitter.com/qy2SX0LET8
— Ajit Datta (@ajitdatta) May 22, 2021
While the state of Rajasthan occupies itself in vaccinating dead people, those alive and infected with Covid-19 continue to die due to administrative apathy in the state. In a shocking case of patients not being given the care, they need in Rajasthan’s biggest Covid hospital, at least 442 patients on ventilator support have died in the past 20 days according to a report by Dainik Bhaskar. The cause of death, you may ask? Well, the hospital staff in the state’s biggest Covid-dedicated hospital chose not to clean the endotracheal tube attached to critical patients on life support.
The endotracheal tube is a flexible plastic tube, which is placed through the mouth into the windpipe to help a patient breathe mechanically. It is attached to critically ill patients on a ventilator and needs to be cleaned 5-6 times a day. However, the tube was being cleaned only thrice in two days by the hospital staff which resulted in Black Fungus and other bacterial infections in patients suffering from Covid-19. The cleaning of such tubes takes not more than 2 to 3 minutes, yet, hundreds of patients have died to the laxity on the part of the hospital staff and the Rajasthan government.
While the state of Rajasthan seems to be enthusiastically vaccinating dead individuals, it has reported a vaccine wastage of over 11.5 lakh Covid-19 jabs. This amounts to over 7 per cent of the total doses received by Rajasthan so far. The happenings in the state of Rajasthan merit a Centre-monitored investigation. Else, people will continue to die due to the administration’s ineptitude to deal with the pandemic.