Families say Australians stranded in India need more support

Australia’s large Indian community are fighting to bring their stranded loved ones home.

Australia’s grieving Indian community say they are disappointed by the Federal Government’s inability to bring stranded loved ones home from the COVID-ravaged country.

About 9000 Australians are currently stranded in the south-Asian nation as it battles a destructive second wave of the virus, which is killing nearly 3000 people a day.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison banned all commercial and repatriation flights from India until May 15.

Ryde resident Ashwini Sharma’s mother Pushplata went to India in October 2019 for a wedding but has been unable to make it home.

The 82-year-old Australian citizen has diabetes and heart disease and an extremely restricted cultural diet.

Pushplata (middle) with daughter-in-law Anita (top left), son Ashwini (top right), and grandsons Akhil (left) and Arun (right). Picture: Supplied

Mr Sharma has been trying for a year to secure a seat for her on commercial flights with no avail and is apprehensive about repatriation flights because they go to Darwin and Brisbane.

“Even when there were flights, we couldn’t even find seats, we even tried to buy business class but they were always instantly full,” he said.

Pushplata, pictured with grandson Arun, has been stranded in India during the recent COVID outbreak. Picture: Supplied

“Repatriation flights only come through Darwin or Brisbane and she speaks little English and eats very little strictly vegetarian food. At least at Sydney’s hotel quarantine you can give home-cooked meals to the security guards.

“She can only take a direct flight to Sydney because she is elderly with existing health conditions and speaks only very little English so we can’t have her coming through connecting countries.”

Mr Sharma said he was disappointed and hoped the government would secure set portions of commercial flights to Sydney for elderly citizens.

“I wrote to my local MP John Anderson seven/eight months ago but I just got the standard reply. I am disappointed because I understand restrictions by the government but they should give some special consideration to elderly people.”

Writer, poet and Hindi tutor Rekha Rajvanshi, whose sister passed away two days ago in India from COVID-19, said the lack of supplies in Indian hospitals was heartbreaking.

Her 73-year-old sister, who had been in good health, and her 78-year-old husband had struggled to find a bed in an overwhelmed Lucknow hospital after catching the virus.

The rising death toll has created queues at crematoriums across India. Picture: Ritesh Shukla/NurPhotos/Getty Images

Her situation grew worse and she was put in intensive care — but the hospital ran out of liquid oxygen for their specialist machines.

“She didn’t have a chance,” Ms Rajvanshi said.

“The hospital didn’t have the resources. Her daughter, my niece in the United States, was ringing and trying to get help.

“My sister was about to be moved to another better resourced hospital when she died. It is so sad.

“I understand of course that you get older and you are more at risk but without the proper resources you feel it’s not fair.”

Ms Rajvanshi, who has been in Australia for 20 years and works in special needs education, said any help Australians could provide for India would be extremely welcome.

“India needs help, the situation is so serious,” she said. “It’s very tragic.”

Melbourne woman Lavanya Thiruvali Sundararajan is another stranded in India after moving to Delhi to be closer to her elderly parents in December 2019.

The country has been recording 350,000 cases of the virus a day. Picture: Sanjay Kanojia/ AFP

Less than a month after arriving, Mrs Sundararajan contracted COVID-19 and unwittingly passed it on to her mother, 76, and her father, 79, in Chennai.

The virus took her father’s life in February after 15 days in hospital and three stages of oxygen support.

“I moved so I could visit my parents but that never happened (because of lockdowns). Finally, as things seemed to be under control, I visited my parents last January,” the IT worker said,

“Despite taking all precautions, my sister and I picked up COVID-19 and passed it on to my parents. My mum, sister and I recovered. Unfortunately my dad succumbed.

“It was heartbreaking. I don’t know if I ever will get over that loss.”

The death toll from COVID-19 is so high in Delhi that grieving families are unable to hold proper funerals.

Families have been given permission to bury the dead in their backyards instead of lining up at overwhelmed crematoriums.

Three of Ms Sundararajan’s friends lost their fathers in just one week and were forced to hold cremations.

“The city I live in had a mass cremation in a parking lot. There is a queue for people to cremate,” she said.

Lavanya Thiruvali Sundararajan moved to Delhi in December 2019 with her husband and children to be closer to her parents. Picture: Supplied

Brisban woman Ria Wadhwani is among thousands who fear they won’t be able to return to Australia.

Mrs Wadhwani, 32, and her husband Manish, 35, left their jobs to move to the sprawling Indian city of Pune in August 2019 with their son Dev, 3.

They are there to help care for her ill father-in-law, 80, and always planned to return home after two years.

They have spent $3000 on Emirates tickets to return home in July but fear those plans will be disrupted by an extension to the flight ban.

Lavanya’s elderly father died of COVID. Picture: Supplied

“It is an extremely disheartening blow; there are already limited flights and seats on those flights which have been purchased at exorbitant prices,” Mrs Wadhwani told News Corp.
“But I understand the temporary ban. A high number of COVID cases can definitely cause a burden on any country.”

Originally published as Families say Australians stranded in India need more support