Patient takes his own life in Indian hospital after contracting virus

A man has become the latest patient to take his own life after a COVID diagnosis in India as the nation reels from the crisis. WARNING: DISTRESSING

A 34-year-old man has become the latest in a string of patients to take their own life after a COVID-19 diagnosis in India, as the nation reels from a brutal second wave.

The patient reportedly took his own life at a hospital in the city of Lucknow in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Kamal Kishore, a farmer from the city of Sitapur just north of Lucknow, was undergoing chronic kidney disease treatment and had been on dialysis since 2018 after his both kidneys stopped working.

He was admitted to the COVID-dedicated Rajdhani Hospital at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) on April 18 after testing positive for coronavirus on April 16.

The 34-year-old COVID patient is believed to have taken his own life at a hospital in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

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According to a press release issued by SGPGI, Mr Kishore also tested positive in a second test.

“He was taken to the trauma centre but was declared dead,” said Anand Prakash Shukla, the Station House Officer (SHO) at SGPGI. His body has now been handed to police.

Mr Shukla said Mr Kishore was having health issues and that the evidence indicated he had taken his own life, although authorities were not yet ruling anything out.

“The man was not keeping well and our investigation is on in this regard as we can’t rule out anything,” Mr Shukla said.

On April 28, a 26-year-old man identified as Dilip Kumar also took his own life at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) building in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, after he was admitted to the COVID ward as a suspected case.

In another similar incident, a teenager named Suryansh Pathak took his own life in Panchkula, Haryana state, after his parents tested positive for coronavirus.

A pile of discarded PPE kits and other waste spills from a dustbin at Sector 94 crematorium on April 29 in Noida, India. Picture: Sunil Ghosh/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

A relative of COVID-19 victim sobs outside a hospital in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh on April 29. Picture: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP

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The news comes as the escalating situation in India shows no signs of slowing, with a deadly second wave overwhelming hospitals, morgues and crematoriums.

India now accounts for than more 40 per cent of the world’s new COVID cases, with an average of nearly 350,000 new cases a day.

The first US emergency aid to India arrived on Friday as the country reported another 385,000 new cases in the past 24 hours — a new global record — and almost 500 deaths, according to official data that many experts suspect falls short of the true toll.

More than 40 countries have committed to sending vital medical aid, particularly oxygen supplies, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told reporters Thursday. The promised supplies from Australia, Britain, Russia, UAE, Qatar and elsewhere include almost 550 oxygen-generating plants, more than 4,000 oxygen concentrators, 10,000 oxygen cylinders as well as 17 cryogenic tankers.

COVID patients receive oxygen from NGO Khalsa Help International outside a gurudwara (place of worship), in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, as hospitals are overwhelmed. Picture: Ajay Aggarwal/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

India now accounts for more than 40 per cent of the world’s cases, with more than 350,000 per day. Picture: Ajay Aggarwal/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

But several states said they would be unable to begin vaccinating all over-18s from this weekend as planned because they do not have sufficient stock, with the rollout threatened by administrative bickering, confusion over prices and technical glitches on the government’s digital vaccine platform.

Authorities are battling a national disaster as overwhelmed hospitals run out of beds and patients are treated on the streets, while patients’ relatives desperately hunt for medicines and oxygen cylinders.

India also has the world’s highest number of daily deaths, recording 2882 per day on average this week, with Brazil second at 2526 per day and the United States a distant third at 701.

Many crematoriums are facing shortages of wood because of the surge in deaths, with each pyre requiring between 300 and 400 kilos of timber.

— With AFP