My covid experience

 I lost my father to covid on 12 July 2020.

 

We lost him between 3 AM to 6 AM, in Patna. I was in Mumbai at that moment when I got a call from my mother at 6 AM, speaking in a shivering voice, that papa is not responding to anything, there is foam coming out of his mouth and his body has turned cold. I, unable to understand the scenario, asked in a normal voice, "What happened ? Is it fever ? Is there a paracetamol around ?". My mother replied in agony that he is not responding at all. It took my breath away for a second, still unable to comprehend what has happened. I asked again, "what has happened ?". Mummy replied, "He woke up at 2 AM, coughing, saying that it feels as if there is some cough inside, and there is body pain. I gave him warm water to drink and massaged his leg. He felt a little better and then slept around 3 AM. Then I also slept and woke up at 6 AM and found him in this condition." My whole world stopped at that moment, finally understanding what was happening. I rushed to my uncle's room, woke him up and told him this, and gave him the phone because I did not want to talk, because I did not know what to say. After 2-3 minutes, I gathered courage to take back the phone and requested my wife to call my father in law for help. My brother was there with my mother, and I could hear his voice in the background, "Papa uthiye (Papa wake up)". I asked mother to give Phone to my brother and asked him to check if there's any doctor and immediately call for an ambulance as well. At this moment, I completely understood that my father was no more with us. Since the symptoms were corona like, the doctor who lived in the society, initially refused to come but then agreed after a lot of requests. He came, saw, and told us what we didn't want to hear. He asked us to go to hospital immediately for the confirmation. Meanwhile my father in law had asked one of his colleague in Patna to immediately go to my house but I knew it would take time, so I called up an ambulance after searching on Google. We had a car but no one to drive. I wish my brother knew driving. Ambulance took around an hour to come. Around 7:15 AM, I booked flight for Patna scheduled at 9:55 AM. Ambulance arrived at 7:30 AM and I reached Mumbai airport at around 8:00 AM. I had called two of my friends and my father in law to stay in contact with my brother since I would be boarding the plane. My father's friends were also coming to the hospital (Paras hospital, Patna). Before boarding the flight, my uncle asked me, "If the news which is coming is true, then what is to be done once we reach Patna ?". My father 'was' only 52 years in age.

I had never taken any decision in my life on my own. I did not know what to do once I reach Patna. I booked 2 seats together for my uncle and my wife, and 1 seat in another row for myself, to think for 2.5 hours, alone. I do not remember if I thought more or cried more but my tears were easily noticeable to the passengers sitting beside me, for 2 hours. We landed at Patna around 1:00 PM and we rushed to the hospital. I called my brother to check the status. Hospital had done the ECG inside the ambulance itself and confirmed death, but denied entry inside the hospital as it was a suspected covid case. They even refused to give us the ECG report stating that my father wasn't admitted there. I did not know about the covid rules on deaths, maybe no one wanted a covid death into their head. The ambulance stood at the hospital gate since morning. There were so many friends of Papa present there, all helpless, unable to convince the hospital. My father was chief manager in SBI. Some said that bank's higher authority could have done something about it but they don't do much unless union get involved. Some suggested that we should take the body to government hospital and get the report so that the final rituals can be done. My mother and us wanted rituals to be done at Ranchi which is our home city, but others said that we'll need permission from DC to take dead body from Patna to Ranchi i.e. Bihar to Jharkhand. So many opinions were there. It was already 3:30 PM now and we had to decide on something really quick because it had already been 9.5 hours for the body in the ambulance. By this time, my Maami (Maternal Aunt) and her family had also arrived in their car. For a moment, even I got weak to think that DC and govt hospital etc would take a lot of time so final ritual should be done in Patna itself. But my mother was adamant that it has to be done in Ranchi because we had no link to Patna. Since we're christians, we bury the dead and come to visit the grave every year in Easter. So it was quite essential. Then we gathered some courage and told the ambulance that we shall leave for Ranchi in an hour, with all of us in the Car. We decided not to go to DC or govt hospital because it would have taken time and we had already been standing at one hospital gate for 10 hours with no progress at all. Worst case scenario would have been checking at Bihar-Jharkhand border due to lockdown but then we decided to take the risk like every other common man having no other option at our disposal. Ambulance charged us 45,000 for those 335 kms. We were not in a condition to judge the genuineness of this 45,000 rupees, but today I feel that maybe one man's death becomes another man's opportunity. Since no one had eaten anything since morning so we bought some snacks since Patna to Ranchi is 9 hours of continuous drive, that too at night, after whole day of tiredness. The bigger problem, however, was that I was aware that my brother and mother were with Papa, so if papa turns out to be covid positive, they may very well be positive too. So I and my uncle decided that since we have 3 cars, my uncle and my wife will go in one, completely isolated from everyone else, and I'll take up the other car with Mummy and my brother. We kept the third car (Maami and family) isolated from beginning. I couldn't have risked anyone else so we had to plan accordingly. We left from Patna at 5 PM.

The ambulance was completely sealed from all sides. Driver section was isolated and hence there was no risk of covid transmission. We made sure that mummy and brother wore mask all the time and I kept the windows of my car open. I tried to keep distance as much as possible, and did not use water or snacks to avoid transmission in the car. It was difficult to keep distance from my own family but I knew that I have to do a lot in Ranchi, meet a lot of people, and hence I could not risk getting infected. We had thought of stopping at Hazaribagh (mummy's home) in Jharkhand at night to get rest, but keeping an ambulance was a big concern because of society hindrances so we dropped mummy and brother there at Mama's house and left for Ranchi with my uncle, my wife and my Mama in one car. We reached Ranchi at 2 AM in the morning after driving for approx 9 hours. 

 

13th July 2020. It was 13th July and 20 hours had passed now. My friend had suggested to get admission into RIMS hospital. So we directly went to the hospital at 2 AM, at covid trauma center in RIMS. The intern/junior doctor who was sitting there was very helpful and prepared for us a 'brought dead' certificate, which basically mentioned that the body has been brought dead from Patna and is suspected of covid, thus requiring a covid test. He asked us to take that certificate and body to Central Emergency building. We went there and found 3-4 interns(or junior doctors/RIMS students) there who were very rude and rejected to admit initially. But since certificate was RIMS certified, and hence in the record, they could not have refused it. But, to my shock, they asked the ambulance to take out the body and leave it there until someone checks it. I objected to this since it was a covid suspected case and hospital was full of people, thus increasing the risk of transmission if the body was left outside the ambulance in the open among the people. The seniormost(looked seniormost) of them said, and I quote, "jitna bola ja raha utna karo, apna dimaag mat lagao" (do only what you are being asked to do and stop being smart). He seemed maybe more interested in the girl colleague sitting beside him. This shocked me to the core. I came out and requested ambulance driver to wear a PPE kit and then open the ambulance door. Seeing this, the hospital staff(completely drunk) refused to touch the ambulance. This made the whole environment serious because PPE kit scares people. To my relief, the other junior intern(or junior doctor/RIMS student) who seemed more mature, came running asking not to open it and instead asked us to directly take it to mortuary. Meanwhile they had lost the document somewhere which we had got from Covid Trauma Center. Thankfully I had clicked the picture of that document before submitting to them, and so they made a certificate for admission into mortuary and asked us to go back to the Covid Trauma Center. We then went back there, showed this to the intern/junior doctor, who then requested guard to place the body at mortuary. Now this guard (name was Lallan, most probably) was also completely drunk and refused to do it, saying that mortuary doesn't have any space. He keep on arguing with us and the intern, so the intern called up a senior doctor and then finally guard agreed to put the body into mortuary. But the utter carelessness with which he handled the body, was so painful to see, as if he was handling some dustbin bag. The guy was completely drunk but we somehow wanted to get the body inside mortuary so we had to tolerate everything. In between all this, my wife managed to take a picture of my father, which was to be his last photo ever. We didn't know at that moment that the next time we see him, he'll be completely wrapped up in layers of plastic, in a bag. The intern told us that the covid test of the body would take place at around 11 AM so we should comeback in the evening to check. It was already 5 AM in the morning. We went to the flat of Mama which was lying vacant in Ranchi. Chacha has his family in Ranchi but we had a responsibility of not making any contacts with anyone until covid test gets done.

After reaching the flat in the morning, we slept a bit. It was hard. Don't know how many times I went to the bathroom to hide my tears. We were very much aware that if the covid test comes out to be positive, they'll burn the body without handing it over to us. We wanted to bury it in the graveyard. We were the first such christian case in Ranchi so we had no prior example to take any clue from. Being clueless, we asked our relatives in Ranchi to go to church and check for possibilities as soon as possible. We went to RIMS in 2nd half to find out that the test came out to be positive. Although we had taken complete precautions, yet we called the ambulance drivers to inform them of the same so that they stay aware of any symptoms, just in case. Now this had two implications. First, the whole body handover issue, they would try to burn it on the same day. Second, this increased chances of my whole family to be covid positive. One of our relative worked in RIMS as a senior doctor. We requested him to give us one day to arrange for burial. This decision was to be taken by DC of Ranchi. After a lot of effort, he gave us one day with the condition that there should be proper permission from the Church. There cannot be more that 8-10 people at the burial site. We went back to the flat, coordinating everything on phone, so as to keep our distance from everyone else. I called my mother and everyone at Hazaribagh, told them that body will be taken out on the next day, either for burial or for burning. I told them to be ready and come to Ranchi as and when I tell them to, in complete isolation making no contact with anything on road. And then the plan was to send them back after all the process to Hazaribagh and get them covid tested.

14th July 2020. We went to the RIMS in the morning itself to make sure that nothing happens to the body until we get permission from the Church. We stood there for hours, coordinating things on call, waiting for something to happen and finally in the evening, the church agreed. The RIMS ambulance had a schedule of taking out all covid death bodies at 4 PM. But we were not ready by that time. Then we discovered, that for burial process, one ambulance and police van will accompany us to the graveyard, but then we will ourselves have to take the body out of ambulance and bury it. Administration was not supposed to provide us any staff for the purpose. We were to be given the PPE kits for the purpose. Apparently, the same being done for burning cases too. At around 2 PM, I had asked everyone to leave Hazaribagh and come to Ranchi. We had strictly told them not to interact with anyone in the way, and to directly go to the graveyard and wait for us to come. They (Mummy, Maami, brother, cousin sister and her husband Vikramjeet and 2 cousins) reached Ranchi at around 4 PM in two cars. After realising that we have to handle the body ourselves, I called my brother, sister's husband and both cousins in one car to RIMS. All the others remained at graveyard in another car. We were helped a lot by Deepak ji, staff at RIMS. He helped us take the body from mortuary to ambulance, helped us in getting PPE kits, helped us in delaying the process by 1-2 hours so that we get everything prepared at the burial site. We walked to the mortuary to get the body. Since I was supposed to manage everything in and out, so I asked one of the cousins, my brother and Vikramjeet ji to wear the PPE kits. They were supposed to take the body out, put it into the ambulance and sit inside the ambulance to the graveyard because their PPE kits were now in contact with Papa's body. In the meantime, things were getting ready at the burial site. We could not find labors to dig the grave because no one agreed to. After a lot of effort, one JCB agreed to do it and we called them to dig the grave. By the time we reached graveyard, the grave was ready. The police van stood at the gate of graveyard and ambulance came near the burial site. All 3 in PPE kits got the body out and we had a coffin ready near the grave. They carefully put the body into the coffin. No one, except me, was allowed to come close to grave, so no one else could see Papa for the last time. Only I, my brother, my cousin and Vikramjeet ji could see this close for one last time. We could only see the plastic since the body was completely wrapped up in plastic. Everyone else was standing at some distance, looking at the process. It was around 6-7 PM by now, dark. We got one car close to the grave for the lights because it was completely dark. It was very difficult to put the coffin into the grave because it was very heavy and graves are very deep. We used ropes and somehow we did it. It took us almost an hour trying to put the coffin into the grave. We had arranged for 5-6 litres of sanitisers. We completely sanitised the PPE kits from outside before undressing them, then put those too into the grave and then asked JCB to fill the grave. It took JCB around 5-10 minutes to do it and then it left. My brother, mother, cousins and all left for Hazaribagh from there. I, my uncle, Mama and my wife, left for the flat. We kept both the groups away from each other in different cities intentionally. All of us were supposed to get tested for covid the next day.